The Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment 9780748673865

Citation preview

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment

Christopher J. Berry

Edinburgh University Press

Dedication To all those Politics Honours students at Glasgow who opted for the Scottish Enlightenment

© Christopher]. Berry, 1997 Reprinted 2001 Edinburgh University Press George Square, Edinburgh

22

Transferred to digital print 2008

Typeset in Monotype Ehrhardt by Carnegie Publishing, 1 8 Maynard St, Preston and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

The right of Christopher J. Berry to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (1988).

Contents Preface

Vll

Abbreviations

X

The Enlightenment and Scotland A: The Enlightenment B: Eighteenth-century Scotland Notes

8 21

2

Sociality and the Critique of Individualism A: The Evidence B: Explanations of Sociality C: The Critique of Individualism D: Unintended Consequences and the Demotion of Purposive Rationality E: Conclusion Notes

23 23 25 30

3

Science, Explanation and History A: Baconianism B: Causal Explanation C: Conjectural History D: Conclusion Notes

52 52

4

5

54

61 70 71

Social Diversity A: Relativism B: Moral and Physical Causes C: Conclusion Notes Social History A: Locke, Empiricism and Primitive Psychology B: Property and the Four-stages Theory C: Ranks D: Government and Authority E: Manners and Women F: Conclusion Notes v

74 74 77

88 88 91 91 93 99 104 109

113 115

VI

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

6

7

8

Commercial Society A: Prosperity B: Liberty, Justice and the Rule of Law C: Commerce, Virtue and Corruption D: Conclusion Notes Social Values A: Moral Theory B: Religion C: Taste D: Conclusion Notes

120 120 122

133

ISO 152

IS6 xs6 x66 174 x8o 181

Reading the Scottish Enlightenment A: Explanatory B: Significatory Notes Bibliography

200

Index

221

Preface When asked the standard academics' question, ' ... and what are you working on?' I replied, 'I'm writing a "new Bryson"'. I was alluding to Gladys Bryson's Man and Society: the Scottish Inquiry ofthe Eighteenth Century. This book was published in 1945 and has remained the only general book on the social thought of the Scottish Enlightenment. But this is not because the topic has remained moribund. On the contrary, interest has burgeoned and at an increasing rate of productivity. While Bryson's book is still not redundant, this increased interest, coupled with the fact that inevitably foci shift and scholarship accumulates, makes another overview opportune. This book attempts that task. As an 'overview' it is designedly a synoptic volume rather than a detailed monograph on some particular theme. Any synopsis presumes judgements as to what is important but, consistent with that presumption and thus also with my offering a reading of my own, I am consciously taking stock. While I hope that specialists will find something of value, my main target audience is the less specialist reader- students as well as academics. In line with this, I've thought it appropriate to confine my exposition to printed sources and not quarry the rich seams of unpublished material. (I break this rule on a couple of occasions in some notes where the material is particularly perspicuous and where it has already been quoted in academic commentary.) A Preface justifies its existence by enabling the author to set out his or her stall and attempt (often in vain) to forestall some predicted criticisms. Nothing if not conventional I want to use it similarly. The best place to begin is the beginning. My title comes in two parts and each requires a gloss. By 'Scottish Enlightenment' I do not mean to be making any substantial point. There has been considerable debate as to what the term signifies - which I touch on in Chapter 8 - but I have decided that to make that an 'issue' would ill serve my purposes. In the broadest of senses I am using the term to refer to the intellectual literature written in Scotland between approximately 1740 (the date of the third volume of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature) and 1790 (the date of the sixth and final edition of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments) with the third quarter of the century representing its core. Of course there is an element of arbitrariness about my parameters, and I do discuss works written before 1740, but since there is no agreed definition then it would court unnecessary controversy to insist on a hard and fast definition of my own. The phrase 'social theory' in my title is indicative rather than definitive. I can best outline its scope by stating what I take it to exclude as well as include. I am (relatively speaking) excluding philosophical issues in the narrow sense. What this means in practice is that, with the exception of his treatment of causality (see vii

VIII

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Chapter 3 (Biii)), Hunie's arguments in Treatise Books I and II will not be covered. This also means that Reid and the 'Common Sense' reaction to Hume will not be discussed. I also exclude scientific topics. I do not examine the theories or experimental work of eminent figures like Black, Cullen, Hunter or Maclaurin. However, I do discuss the importance of 'science' in shaping the outlook and agenda of the Scots' social thought (see especially Chapter 3). Somewhat similarly though I discuss their artistic and litera~y theorising (Chapter 7 (C)), I do not examine the poetry penned, the plays performed, the pictures painted or the buildings built. Also excluded is any extensive treatment of the social, economic, political and cultural setting. I do provide an initial 'scene-setting' discussion of these factors (Chapter I (B)). This book, therefore, does not seek to emulate Anand Chitnis' valuable The Scottish Enlightenmmt (I976), which he explicitly sub-titles 'A Social History'. Rather, it deals almost exclusively with 'intellectual' matters as the phrase 'social theory' suggests. What the book includes under the label 'social' is the historical theorising, the political and economic writings, the moral philosophy and the more generally pervasive concern of the Scots with 'cultural' issues. These hang together in their thought, and my aim in Chapters 2 to 7 is to explore this coherence. Some additional comments on this exploration are in order. The book is organised thematically but these themes do not exist in hermetical isolation one from another, and there is, therefore, considerable cross-referencing. The very rationale of the book supposes the appropriateness of talking of'Scottish' theory rather than only of Hume's or Smith's or ... (It is worth adding parenthetically that just as my treatment of Hume's Treatise is selective so, too, do I not claim to supply a comprehensive examination of the other great book of this time and place, Smith's Wealth of Nations, I focus on the early chapters ofBook I, and Books 3 and 5.) Given that it is the theory of the Scots in general that is under consideration, then it is a matter of some moment to identify and demonstrate where particular arguments are echoed, and, on these occasions, this requires the provision of more than one citation or quotation - duplication is itself the point. While the generalising term 'the Scots' can justifiably be used, they are, of course, not homogeneous; there are particular differences. Some of these are chronological (when Hutcheson died in I746, Millar was only eleven years old), some are institutional (the Aberdeen Enlightenment is not full square with that ofEdinburgh) and some intellectual (Monboddo and most of the rest). In acknowledgement of this, but in line with the book's thematic identity, I do cite differences where appropriate. As I explore these themes, I focus on the primary sources themselves. The notes indicate relevant secondary literature, but I do not engage (save by implication from what I choose to emphasise or downplay) in the scholarly debates. I have, however, thought it worth while to canvass the various interpretations given, and reasons why the Scots' social theory has been valued, in a separate concluding chapter. Questions of methodology in the history of ideas have taken on a life of their own in recent years but I have quite deliberately side-stepped them in order

PREFACE

IX

to avoid becoming embroiled in disputes which are peripheral to my concerns. To speak boldly, the guiding aim in my exploration is to attend to the issues that the Scots themselves can be seen as addressing in their writings. These writings, by and large, tackled 'big' themes and ideas ('the history of mankind'; 'the wealth of nations'; the nature of 'civilisation') and were presented as contributions to debates of a general and wide-ranging character and not as engagements in parochial affairs. I have largely followed that presentational bias. Prefaces also serve a dues-paying function. I first began work in this area at the London School of Economics in the heady days of the late sixties under the supervision of Donald MacRae and (initially) Ken Minogue. This gives me an opportunity to record publicly an appreciation of their supportive steerage. I kept the interest in the Scots alive in the congenial atmosphere of Glasgow by teaching an Honours course on the Scottish Enlightenment. The shape and emphases of this book derive so much from the experience of teaching that course that I dedicate it to all those students who took it (and opted to do so on the graveyard shift of Friday afternoons). As I produced drafts of the various chapters, I sent them off to Roger Emerson, whose full and speedy comments demonstrated not only his great expertise but also the highest standards of academic co-operation. My debt to him defies repayment. For some helpful observations I am also grateful to Colin Kidd, who read at a later stage a draft of the whole. Christopher ]. Berry GJasgow

Abbreviations By author, the following abbreviations of frequently cited works (and editions used) are inserted in parentheses in the text. BLAIR LRB DUNBAR EHM

Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (I 783), in one volume I 838. Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages, 2nd edn, I781.

FERGUSON ECS An Essay on the History of Civil Society (I767), ed. D. Forbes, I966. IMP Institutes of Moral Philosophy (I769), 3rd edn, I785. PMPS Principles of Moral and Political Science (I792), 2 vols. repr. New York, I973 Rom The History of the Progress and Termination ofthe Roman Republic (I783), 5 vols. GREGORY

cv

HUME Abs DNR E AS CL Com FPC !PC LP Mon NC

oc

OC PAN PC PD PC PrS RA SE

A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World (I765), in Works vol. 2, I788. An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature (I740), ed. C. Hendel, I955· Dialogues concerning Natural Religion ( I779), in Hume on Religion, ed. R. Wollheim, I963. Essays: Moral, Political and Literary (I779), ed. E. Miller, I987. Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences (I742). Of Civil Liberty (I74I: original title, Of Liberty and Despotism). Of Commerce (I752). Of the First Principles of Government (I74I). Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth (I752). Of the Liberty of the Press (1741). Of Money (1752). Of National Characters (I 748). Of the Original Contract (1748). Of the Origin of Government (I774: pub!. I777). Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations (1752). Of Public Credit (I754). Of Polygamy and Divorces ( I742). Of Parties in General (174I). Of the Protestant Succession (I 752). Of Refinement in the Arts (I752: original title, Of Luxury). Of Superstition and Enthusiasm (I74I). X

ABBREVIATIONS

ST Sui EPM EHU HE Letts NHR THN

Of the Standard of Taste (1757). Of Suicide (publ. 1777). An Enquiry concerning the Principles of/vl.orals (1751), eds. L. Selby-Bigge & P. Nidditch, 1975. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), eds. L. Selby-Bigge & P. Nidditch, 1975. The History of England (1786), 3 vols., 1894. The Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Greig, 2 vols., 1932. The Natural History of Religion (1757), inHume on Religion, ed. R. Wollheim, 1963. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739/ 40), ed. L. Selby-Bigge, 1888.

HUTCHESON A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1747), repr. Hildesheim, 1969. SIMP Philosophical Writings, ed. R. Downie, 1994. PWD KAMES EC ELS HLT PMNR SHM

MILLAR HV HV(L) OR

The Elements of Criticism (1762), 9th edn, 2 vols., 1817. Elucidations respecting the Common and Statute Law of Scotland 1778. Historical Law Tracts (1758), 3rd edn, 1776. Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751), 3rd edn (corrected and improved), 1779. Sketches of the History of Man (1774), 3rd edn, 2 vols., 1779. An Historical View of the English Government (1803), 4 vols., 1812. Ibid. (extracts) repr. in John Millar of Glasgow, W. Lehmann, 1960. The Origin ofthe Distinction of Ranks (1779), 3rd edn, repr. in John Millar of Glasgow, W. Lehmann, 1960.

MONBODDO Of the Origin and Progress of Language, 6 vols., 1773-92. OPL Antient Metaphysics, 6 vols., 1779-99. AM MONTESQUIEU The Spirit of the Laws (1748), tr. A. Cohler et al., 1989. SL REID AP IP

Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788), in Works, ed. W. Hamilton, in one volume, 1846. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785), in Works, ed. W. Hamilton, in one volume, 1846.

ROBERTSON History of America (1777), in Works, ed. D. Stewart, in one volume, 1840. HAm History of Scotland (1759), in Works, ed. D. Stewart, in one volume, 1840. HSc An Historical Disquisition concerning Ancient India (1791), in Works, ed. India D. Stewart, in one volume, 1840. A View of the Progress of Society in Europe (1769), in Works, ed. VPE D. Stewart, in one volume, 1840. SMITH Corr

Correspondence of Adam Smith, eds. E. Mossner and I. Ross, 1987.

XI

xu EPS LRBL LJ TMS WN

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Essays on Philosophical Subjects (1795), ed. W. Wightman, 1982. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. J. Bryce, 1985. Lectures on Jurisprudence, eds. R. Meek, D. Raphael and P. Stein, 1982. The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759, 1st edn), eds. A. Macfie and D. Raphael, 1982. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), ed. R. Campbell and A. Skinner, 1981.

STEUART An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy (1767), 2 vols. ed. PPE A. Skinner, 1966. STUART Diss PLS VSE

ALSO SB

Historical Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the English Constitution, 1768. Observations concerning the Public Law and the Constitutional History of Scotland, 1779. A View of Society in Europe in its Progress from Rudeness to Refinement (1792), 2nd edn, repr. Bristol, 1995. British Moralists (1897), ed. L. Sclby-Bigge, 2 vols. in one, 1964.

I

The Enlightenment and Scotland This opening chapter performs the customary task of introduction. A lot of ground is traversed quickly but the necessary speed is only achieved by treading lightly. In section A, I outline the general intellectual context by providing an overview of the broad movement known as the 'Enlightenment' while in section B I outline some salient aspects of the Scottish environment. These outlines are modest in both design and execution. They provide some information to help fill in the background to the Scots' social theory. Of course, this provision is not neutral; any process of selection necessarily draws attention to some aspects rather than others. Nevertheless, the information is (so to speak) passive. In so far as it is possible I am avoiding the thicket of problems that are involved not only in relating social circumstances to ideas but ideas to ideas.

A: The Enlightenment The term 'Enlightenment' is a convenient piece of intellectual short-hand that serves to summarise a set of ideas. Like all summaries there is room for dispute as to what is the core, and therefore has to be included, and what peripheral, and therefore excludable. It follows from this that the stability of the core cannot be taken for granted. Nevertheless, there has to be the possibility of a 'core', else the term itself is purely fictional - there needs to be some minimal identity. Peter Gay (1967: 4) uses the analogy of the family to this end. A family is a recognisable entity (both internally and externally), but along with its ties and bonds go squabbles and differences. The attractiveness of the analogy is that it enables the Scots to be linked to the wider movement while allowing them to be differentiated. One justified criticism of Gay's account is that it over-emphasises the French experience (cf. e.g. Ford 1968, Darnton 1971, Leith 1971). This is but another way of saying that his 'core' marginalises what others think to be central elements and vice versa. Certainly if the Enlightenment is too closely identified with an 'anti-establishment' posture then much about the Scottish branch of the family can look only distantly related. Gay openly admits that the familial analogy is not his own but was one used by contemporaries. This itself is a good indicator of a core ingredient. The Enlightenment was a self-conscious movement. The participants - referred to variously as philosophes, the Aufkldrer and the literati- were by definition members of the educated stratum of society. In Scotland as elsewhere, many were professionals, especially lawyers, doctors and university professors, although for the last of these the nearest equivalent, in England, were teachers in Dissenting Academies. In France, with one or two exceptions, they were either professional men of letters

2

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

or of independent means. As participants they came from the full extent of the western world - from Aberdeen in the north to Naples in the south, from St Petersburg in the east to Philadelphia in the west (cf. Venturi 1971: Ch. s, Gusdorf 1971: Pt. I; Porter & Teich 1981). They were genuine participants in that they saw themselves as engaged in the same debates. Moreover, this engagement was not a parochial affair but spread across the world of letters. Two Scottish examples of this phenomenon are the impact of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality on Smith or Monboddo or Dunbar and Kant's admission that it was reading Hume that awoke him from his dogmatic slumber. Kant's case bears out the further fact that writings were quickly translated and disseminated. Although the Wealth ofNations (1776) was clearly an exceptional work it was translated into Danish, French (twice) and German (twice) all before Smith's death in 1790 (Campbell & Skinner, 1985: 168). There were also personal and institutional links. Hume befriended Rousseau and brought him to Britain and Robertson was a member of the Royal Academy of Madrid. A striking non-Scottish example is the French philosopher and mathematician D'Alembert, who was a member of the Royal Academy of Science of Prussia, the Royal Society of London, the Royal Literary Academy of Sweden and the Institute of Bologna (Cranston 1991: 128). If we turn to the core concerns of these self-conscious intellectuals then their imagery of 'light' provides the best guide. They thought of themselves as living in and promoting un siecle des lumieres (cf. Gusdorf 1971: Pt. 3 Ch. 1). This implied that earlier times were comparatively benighted. In less metaphorical terms this contrast between light and dark is the contrast between knowledge, reason or science and ignorance, prejudice and superstition. Hence any institutions such as slavery, torture, witchcraft or religious persecution that still existed were to be opposed as relics, as creatures of the night. The radiance of reason and the appliance of science would likewise clear away the light-blocking debris of poverty, disease and crime (Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (1764), for example, was an international best-seller with its passionate attack on the death-penalty). In a short essay 'What is Enlightenment?' (1784) Kant answers his own question by saying that it is 'dare to know!' The motto of Enlightenment is 'have the courage to use your own reason' (1963: 3). Kant stresses that 'enlightenment' is an escape from the direction or control of another and that it requires determination or resolution to take control of one's destiny. To fail to make this escape is to remain in the dark. However, the escape is not a private individual task but a public one that requires freedom. What is crucial to the attainment of enlightenment is 'the public use of one's reason' and that 'must always be free' (5). And, as Kant makes clear, this extends to religion; it cannot be exempted from the operation of this freedom, the light of reason must shine forth there, too. While Kant is perhaps the most austerely intellectual of all the Enlightenment thinkers it was a central plank in his philosophy that theory and practice be wedded not divorced. (He wrote an essay on this very theme arguing that this separation causes great damage (1949: 414).) Nowhere is this unity better exemplified than

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

3

in the Encyclopedia or Rational Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Professions. This is one of the key products of the Enlightenment. Under the general editorship of Diderot, seventeen large volumes were published between I75I and I765 and four more between I 776 and I 780, accompanying these were twelve volumes of plates (cf. Lough I97I). A revealing insight into this emblematic project can be gained from the Preliminary Discourse (I75I) written by D'Alembert. This discourse has been called the best resume of the spirit of the eighteenth century (Schwab's Introduction I963: xi). Somewhat like Kant was later to argue, D'Alembert too, but in a blunter fashion, emphasises the link between enlightenment and liberty while decrying the ignorance and superstition of earlier ages (in Schwab (ed.) I963: 62). He admits that, as a consequence, there is a tendency to belittle earlier thinkers and counsels that this should not be carried to excess. In the second part of his Preliminary Discourse he identifies four significant predecessors, who 'prepared from afar the light which gradually by imperceptible degrees would illuminate the world' (74). His choice of the quartet is instructive and we shall benefit from it, but it is also strategic. There are some key omissions. The most notable of these is Pierre Bayle, whose own Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697) was a significant precursor of the Encyclopedia itself. 1 Francis Bacon is the first of D' Alembert's quartet. Continuing the dominant metaphor he describes Bacon as 'born in the depths of the most profound night' (74). Bacon's major advance was to regard philosophy as knowledge that should contribute to improving the human lot. This practical, utilitarian bent is a key feature of the Enlightenment (Chapter 3 will deal with its presence in the Scots). D'Alembert also points out Bacon's hostility to arid intellectual systems, with late medieval Scholasticism, which clung to an Aristotelian framework, the particular target. Bacon's own alternative schema had a direct influence on the organisation of the Encyclopedia itself in its acceptance of the three-fold division of history, philosophy and poetry corresponding respectively to the three faculties of memory, reason and imagination. (D' Alembert did, however, take pains to point out differences- see his Observations on Bacon's Division ofthe Sciences (in D' Alembert/ Schwab: 159-64).) Second in line is Descartes, who 'opened the way for us' (78). His critical method showed how to 'throw off the yoke of scholasticism, of opinion, of authority' (8o). He himself received no benefit, but posterity has; even though, as D'Alembert admits, one consequence of his legacy was for his heirs to assail much of his own positive philosophy. (That the Enlightenment was in fact deeply Cartesian is argued by a number of scholars (e.g. Vartanian 1952, Frankel 1948, Crocker I963).) In the vanguard of this assault were the two remaining members of the quartet - the English philosophers Newton and Locke. Newton is the hero of the Enlightenment. According to D' Alembert he gave to science the 'form which it is apparently to keep' (81). This accolade was repeatedly bestowed throughout the world of letters. To speak generally, Newton's achievement was to encompass within one comprehensive schema an explanation, derived

4

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

from a few simple principles (laws of motion plus gravity}, of the range of natural phenomena, from the orbit of the planets to apples falling from trees. Scots were at the forefront in adopting Newton's framework. The acceptance of his 'system' was slower elsewhere, and in France, despite Voltaire's endorsements, there was considerable debate as to whether Newton's or Descartes' 'celestial mechanics' was correct. Newton won out, and an important factor in his success was that he was proved right. One such proof, and this captures much of the spirit of the Enlightenment, was an expedition in 1735 to Lapland led by the Frenchman Maupertuis but sponsored by the Berlin Academy (cf. Hankins 1985: 38-c)}. According to Newton the earth was not, contrary to Descartes, elongated at the poles and flat at the equator but flatter around the poles (was a turnip not a lemon cf. Hall 1970: 319}. Maupertuis' expedition took measurements and these vindicated Newton. 2 Newton also made a fateful methodological prediction. In the Preface to his Optics (1704} he declared that the method of natural philosophy or science would when perfected enlarge the bounds of moral philosophy (that is, of social science}. This inspired many attempts to apply Newton to the moral world (human nature and society}. As we shall later discuss in some detail (Chapter 3}, this was especially true of the Scottish Enlightenment. One hallmark of Newton's status is that to liken someone's work to his was to pay it the highest possible compliment. For example, John Millar declared Smith to be the 'Newton of political economy' because he had discovered the principles of commerce (HV: II 429-30n./ HVL: 363n.}. Other examples include Kant calling Rousseau the 'Newton' of the moral world due to the central unifying role given to the 'will', while Rousseau's musicological competitor Rameau's work on the principles of harmony resulted in him being likened to Newton. Of John Locke, the final member of his quartet, D'Aiembert said 'he created metaphysics almost as Newton had created physics'' (83}. By 'metaphysics' here D'Aiembert means 'the experimental physics of the soul' (84}. This is what it ought to be, not the grand schemes and systems of medieval philosophy or of moderns like Spinoza, Malebranche or even Descartes. D' Alembert, following Condillac (cf. Knight 1968: 6o}, distinguished between the esprit de systeme and the esprit systematique (D'Aiembert/Schwab: 22-3}. The former 'flatter(s} the imagination' (94} while the latter corresponds rather to a Newtonian synthesisthe reduction of complexity to a few simple principles. Locke's key work is his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1689}. In his 'Epistle to the Reader' prefaced to the book, Locke called himself an 'underlabourer' (1854: II u8}. There were two reasons why. First, he realised he was not a 'master-builder', like the 'incomparable' Newton or Huyghens or Boyle (121}. That is to say, he was aware not only that he was unable to practise 'science' (the mathematics was beyond him} but also that, at that time, it represented the 'cutting-edge' of intellectual progress. His second reason was to draw something positive from this. His task, as he saw it, was to remove 'some of the rubbish that lies in the way of knowledge' (121}.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

5

Central to this 'rubbish' was the do-ctrine of innate ideas or the argument that the mind contained within it certain universal truths or primary ideas. Locke denied that this was the case. Rather the infant's mind was a 'white paper' (205) or 'empty cabinet' (142). If we now ask, where do our ideas come from? Locke answers 'from experience, in that all knowledge is founded, from that it ultimately derives itself' (205). This bold and apparently uncomplicated assertion of empiricism establishes the parameters for the bulk of Enlightenment thinking. There are two notable exceptions. Kant towards the end of the century is forced to re-think epistemology in order to salvage knowledge from scepticism and Reid, in the mid-century, is forced to attack the Lockean 'way of ideas' in the name of 'common sense'. Both Kant and Reid were galvanised into action by Hume. Hume, while exceptional in his thoroughness, was typical of the generation after Locke as it set to work to tidy up his account. A particularly potent development was to emphasise that if all knowledge comes from experience, then it means all knowledge is gained by means of the senses. All mental 'actions' like judgements and reflections, which Locke had distinguished from sensation, were in fact only transformations of sensation. Condillac used the example of a statue to dramatise the issue. The statue was given each of the five senses in turn and at the completion of this task it was declared to possess the full range of human mental ability (see A Treatise on Sensation [1749]). To much the same end, if from a Cartesian rather than Lockean starting-point and more iconoclastic agenda, La Mettrie wrote a book entitled Man a Machine (1748). The established authorities quickly saw the dangers in this 'sensationalism'; it left no room for the soul. Strictly there should be no threat since the soul, being 'immaterial', could not be 'disproved' by material facts about the 'body'. Yet medical theory (La Mettrie was a doctor) increasingly occupied itself with the relation between the two (cf McManners 1985: 15o-1)- as we will see in Chapter 4 this spilt over into the debate on 'climatic' influence. Beyond these confines the worry was more 'political'. An attack on the soul was an attack on the social order, that is, an attack on the systems of control (the threat of eternity in hell) and on the role of the clergy, as 'doctors of the soul', in upholding that order. There was general agreement that a belief in an after-life was a useful prop in that way; 3 it was the privileged place of the priesthood that was objectionable. Here is the setting for a basic core element in the Enlightenment - the battle between the philosopher and the cleric. This is not the same as non-believers against believers. With a few exceptions, the common Enlightenment view was Deist. That is, the very orderliness of the Newtonian cosmos made the attribution of Design, and thence of a Designer, reasonable (and for Newton himself indispensable 4). Although most strident in France, it was a general characteristic of the Enlightenment that it saw itself as waging war against unreasonable religion or superstition. This self-perception is captured in Voltaire's battle-cry 'ecrasez l'infame'. Here, even if in softer tones, the Scots were at one with Voltaire (see Chapter 7 (B)). Superstitions were the product of credulous ignorance, flourishing like mushrooms in dark places away from light. Since the social power of priests rested on

6

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

keeping the bulk of the population in the dark, they had an interest in blocking out the light of reason. However, if the 'white paper' was inscribed by agents of reason not unreason then enlightenment was possible. In this way Lockean epistemology laid the foundations for an essentially optimistic philosophy. To mould experience is to mould human character. False ideas (like superstitions) are the· product of faulty experience (like the fraudulent teachings of priests), but sound ideas can be produced by sound experience. As Bacon had said, knowledge of causes is power (see Chapter 3). Informed by the findings of science it becomes possible to set humans on the right track. The more rational society becomes then the more rational will be the experience that it passes on to the next generation. Given in this way the pivotal role played by the right transmission of knowledge then 'education' is clearly vital. Helvetius put the case simply and starkly, 'education makes us what we are' (On Man [1773] tr. II, 405). Once again Locke had set the scene with his tract Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693). Much of the popularity of discourses on education in the form of handbooks - a genre in which some Scots participated 5- is doubtless due to practical and cultural 'needs'. The Encyclopedia itself is symptomatic of this as are other numerous enterprises like Chambers' Cyclopedia (identified by Diderot himself as a precursor of his own endeavour). But beyond this practical aspect is a theoretical dimension. The power that education, in a broad sense, possesses (the 'malleability of man' as Passmore (1971) called it) was a crucial premise in the belief in progress (cf. Vereker (1967), Frankel (1948), Sampson (1956)). The most poignant of the accounts of 'progress' was Condorcet's. Condorcet was a brilliant mathematician (his 'paradox' of circulating majorities is still cited in studies of electoral systems). More than a theorist he was also an important independent voice in the Revolution. But his independence proved his downfall. Under sentence of death and in hiding before committing suicide, he wrote his tract Sketch of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795) (cf. Manuel 1962, Baker 1975). In this work he divided history into ten epochs - nine lay in the past and all bore the stigmata of ignorance and the superstitious connivance of priests. There was, however, one redeeming feature - the growth of knowledge, with Newton again being heaped with praise. The tenth epoch of the future will, he believes, see the abolition of inequality between nations, the progress of equality within nations (including that between the sexes) and, with the extirpation of vice and ignorance, the true perfection of mankind. In short, 'the time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason' (tr. 179). The very simplicity of Condorcet's scheme makes it atypical but there were others of recognisably the same stamp (Condorcet himself identifies Turgot, Price and Priestley as precursors). Rousseau famously made his name by denying that progress had improved the lot of mankind (see his First (1750) and Second Discourses (1755)). Of course what made Rousseau famous was precisely the fact that he was going against the flow. The Scots, for their part, are believers in progress. This belief required a theory of history and much of the Scots' social theory was in this

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

7

way historical (see Chapters 3 and 5). In this they were part of the Enlightenment mainstream. The Enlightenment's attitude to the past has come in for heavy criticism, for being in effect 'unhistorical'. (Collingwood (1946) is a classic statement but see also, for example, Stromberg (1951), White (1973).) Others have been more sympathetic, seeing in this period. a new conception of history as universalist, including all of humanity and all facets of humanity in its scope (cf. e.g. Dilthey (1927), Barraclough (1962), Trevor-Roper (1963)). In the Scots this twin-track universalism was captured in the idea of'civilisation'. While they do maintain that it has advanced across a wide front and that the growth of knowledge is indeed a crucial ingredient in this advance, they are less confident than the French, or Englishmen like Priestley, that it is automatic and necessarily always an improvement. An important factor accounting for this less than wholehearted approach is that the Scots attach less weight to reason (cf. Forbes 1954). As we will see one of the persistent strains in their social theory is an awareness of the recalcitrance, the 'stickiness', of institutions and the fact, as they see it, that habit and custom are more decisive in shaping behaviour than reason. In heeding the role of custom the Scots are demonstrating their debt to Montesquieu. Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws (1748) has been called the most influential book in the eighteenth century (Gay 1970: 325) and the Scots are fulsome in their praise. Ferguson goes so far as to proclaim, 'when I recollect what the President Montesquieu has written I am at a loss to tell why I should treat of human affairs' (ECS: 65). The Spirit of the Laws is a large rambling book but its key theme is announced in the Preface, where he declares that amid the great variety of political systems there are some basic explanatory principles (SL: xliii). Montesquieu shows an acute awareness of the diversity of social systems, and he brings forward a range of factors to explain this divergence - including climate, which, as we will discuss in Chapter 4, is one area where the Scots disagreed with him. Montesquieu himself thinks these factors come together to constitute a 'general spirit' (310). In Section B, I attempt something along the same lines for eighteenth-century Scotland, but before that a further aspect of Montesquieu's work is worth developing. It is possible to detect inside the ramshackle structure of the Spirit of the Laws the presence of (at least) two sets of vocabulary. He speaks the language of natural law and gives voice to the idiom of republicanism. Speaking generally, the former stems ultimately from the systems of Roman jurisprudence. In governing the empire there was a need to systematise and codify the various local laws. This legalism penetrated the Church and then entered either directly or indirectly the newly established university curricula. The decisive developments in jurisprudential thinking came in early modern Europe. The causes of these developments are manifold but include the post-Reformation collapse of Christendom and the discovery and colonisation of the 'New World'. The effect of these causes was the formulation of principles of law to encompass the new realities of (frequently warring) sovereign states. Among the most notable of these formulations were those of Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [r625]} and Pufendorf (On the

8

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Law of Nature and Nations [1672]). The latter was especially influential, obtaining a central place in University curricula; Scotland not excepted. Against this backdrop when Enlightenment thinkers criticised institutions they frequently did so invoking the claims of 'justice' (see e.g. Diderot (1992)). The very fact that Montesquieu entitled his book the 'Spirit of the Laws' is itself testament to the importance of this legal framework (see SL: Bk I)." But for all its obvious importance, 'social' thinking was never entirely encompassed within talk of law and rights. An equally venerable vocabulary, with its roots in Aristotle, spoke of virtue and the political or civic life as the authentic expression of human nature. While the language of law suited empires, these latter terms accommodated themselves more easily to republican self-rule. This is of course a sweeping generalisation but the highpoints of republican rhetoric coincided with the flowering of independent city-states in Renaissance Italy, the commonwealth of seventeenth-century England and in the Enlightenment itself in the new American republic. In each of these cases the model was again Rome. But Rome as a republic and before it was 'corrupted' (a key term of art) and succumbed to imperial rule. What gave this tradition an added edge in the eighteenth century was its sensitivity to commerce, which, because of its preoccupation with private gain, it tended to regard as subversive of the commitment to the 'public weal'. That is to say it had in its lexicon the terminology and concepts to respond to the economic changes being experienced as the eighteenth century progressed. The Spirit of the Laws within its pages contained such a lexicon along with a treasure trove of examples of the relationship between political forms and economic practices (see SL: Bks 2o-2)J Montesquieu is not alone in enveloping these two vocabularies. Rousseau, for example, is both a contractarian (a central jurisprudential concept} and an ardent republican. It is accordingly no special attribute of the social theory of the Scottish Enlightenment that it, too, can be seen as engaging with both the language of law and of virtue. Nonetheless it is possible to see in its theory an especially wellarticulated account of that engagement (see Chapter 8). That articulacy itself is an expression of the 'general spirit' of enlightened Scotland - at once a cause and an effect.

B: Eighteenth-century Scotland As I will present it, this general spirit has five inter-related components: political· and legal arrangements; economic changes; the role played by two key institutionsthe Church and the universities; and, finally suffusing the whole, the 'culture' or, in a phrase Hume himself used, the 'spirit of the age' (E-RA: 271 ). Of necessity this presentation can consist only of generalisations and derivative summaries; nuance and qualification will be lost. To attempt something less gross-grained would be beyond the scope of this book. I repeat the earlier point that the aim of this section is to provide general background information to help 'situate' the Scots in time and place.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

9

i) Politics

On the death of Anne in 1714 the throne of England and Scotland passed to George of Hanover. Anne herself had been a daughter of the last Stuart king, James II (and VII), who had effectively been deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The agent of that deposition was the English Parliament and one consequence of the Revolution was to give Parliament a heightened sense of its own powers. The Scottish Parliament had a similar good opinion of itself. However, circumstances were unpropitious. A succession of bad harvests and the ruinous collapse of the Parliament's chief .initiative - the attempt to establish Scotland as a colonial power (the Darien scheme) - together with a trading dispute with the English supplied a backcloth to the Union of the Parliaments in 1707. Whether the Union was necessary, was an act of betrayal by some leading Scots, was the product of English chicanery or just a 'way-out' of immediate pressing difficulties is still a matter of dispute. At the time there was an extensive pamphlet war, which, especially in the contribution of Andrew Fletcher, has been seen by G. E. Davie (1981), for example, as a significant factor in shaping the character of the Enlightenment. According to the Treaty of Union, Scotland was to send sixteen nobles to the Lords and forty-five (out of a total of 568) to the Commons. This arrangement clearly gave the Scots as Scots little direct political power, but the Treaty very significantly allowed them to retain their own legal system and their own form of church administration and doctrine. This was no mere sop since it kept what was of most immediate concern to most people in local hands. We will examine the Church later but the lawyers can best be treated in this section because it was they who played a key role in administering Scotland throughout the eighteenth century. Eighteenth-century British politics is the era of patronage par excellence and Scotland was an integral part of the process. After some toing and froing in the years following the Union a fixed pattern emerged (cf. Simpson 1970). The Argyll faction, in exchange for keeping the Scottish peers and MPs on the government's side, was given, subject to circumstances, a free hand to 'govern' Scotland. The form this governance assumed in the shape of patronage over the Church and universities will be covered below. The actual administration was overseen by a 'sub-minister' based in Edinburgh. This role was played by law-lords. The two most conspicuous being Andrew Milton (Lord Justice-Clerk between 1734 and 1748 and then Keeper of the Signet (Murdoch 1980: rz, Shaw 1983: 6z)) and Henry Dundas (Lord Advocate and Keeper of the Signet) in the last quarter of the century (see Dwyer & Murdoch 1983). The salience of lawyers generally was abetted by the fact that the Union had in a perverse way strengthened their role (along with the Kirk) as the embodiment of a distinctively Scottish way of doing things. Unlike English law, Scots law had always had closer links with European/Roman systems; indeed until the eighteenth century its lawyers were educated abroad, especially at the great Dutch universities ofLeiden and Utrecht. While, as we noted earlier, the most renowned developers of

IO

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

systematic jurisprudence were continental, the Scots also participated, and some scholars (e.g. MacCormick 1982) have considered Lord Stair's The Institutes of the Laws of Scotland (r68r) as setting the scene for the Enlightenment. Certainly a legal background is prominent in several of the social theorists - Kames was a law-lord as was Monboddo; Millar was a Professor of Law; Smith and Ferguson lectured on 'law'; and Hume had some legal training. To pick up the political thread, the members of the Scottish Enlightenment were Hanoverians. This meant more than supporting the current system because that very support signified their opposition to Jacobitism. The Jacobites were the supporters of the Stuart line, and in the first half of the eighteenth century there were regular flare-ups against the new dynasty. The regularity of these suggests that the Hanoverian succession was far from bedded down. The two most significant rebellions were the '15 and the '45· The former had widespread support, tapping into a well of general dissatisfaction with the perceived lack of benefits flowing from the Union. For example, the staff of the two Aberdeen universities (Kings and Marischal Colleges) had to be purged due to their support for the uprising. Although the '45 initially posed a great threat to the British state (the Young Pretender's army penetrated as far south as Derby), it was, within Scotland, poorly supported outside a few Highland clans. This time the Aberdeen universities were loyal, indeed some members took up arms against the rebels (Emerson 1992: 12), while St Andrews elected Cumberland, the victor ('the butcher') of Culloden, as its Chancellor. After the battle of Culloden, which crushed the rebellion, it was deliberate policy to destroy the political separateness of the Highlands (Y oungson 1972: 26). This destruction was the work of several Acts of Parliament. The Annexation Act of 1752 confiscated Jacobite estates and, under the aegis of the Board of Annexed Estates, run by Milton and of which Kames was a member, their rents were used quite deliberately to assimilate Highlanders into Lowland culture. 8 Another consequential measure was the passing of an Act abolishing 'heritable jurisdictions'. These jurisdictions, which gave local clan chiefs rights to administer justice (including the power to punish by death), had been explicitly preserved by the Treaty of Union but were nonetheless overturned on the grounds that it had given these chiefs the power to raise an 'army' from their vassals (Shaw 1983: r69). Adam Smith refers to one of these chiefs (Cameron of Locheil) in the Wealth of Nations (WN: 416) in the context of an explanation of the emergence of a commercial society. The Scots identified their own (i.e. urban Lowland plus Aberdeen) society as 'commercial'. This apparent sensitivity to the definitive quality of the economy is both a hallmark of their social theory and testimony to the economic changes taking place. ii) The Economy

One of the motives behind the Union was the need for Scots to gain unrestricted access to English markets. Eventually by about mid-century the Union began to have an economic pay-off and rapid change took place (cf. Devine 1985). The

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

II

scale and rapidity of this change can be conveyed by reciting a few statistics. Between 1751 and 1801 the population grew by over a quarter. That increase, however, was not evenly distributed; the process is better described as urbanisation since Glasgow's population in that period grew from (roughly) 27,500 to 77,400 and Edinburgh's from 52,250 to 8z,soo, while Dundee's doubled and Aberdeen's increased by 8o per cent (Lenman 1981: 3). Excluding agriculture, the production of textiles, especially linen, was the chief industry. Here, too, expansion was dramatic with a seven-fold increase in output between the early 1730s and late 1790s (Durie 1979: 158). A similar growth took place in the tobacco trade with the Scottish share of the British trade rising from 10 per cent in 1738 to 52 per cent in 1769 (Smout 1969: 244). This signalled the beginning of the rise of the Glasgow 'tobacco lords' whose mark is left in present-day Glasgow in the guise of street names such as Ingram and Glassford (as well as Virginia). The development of 'heavier' industry like mining, chemicals and smelting did not take off until the last quarter of the century. These. developments required the urbanisation and textile production to have burgeoned sufficiently to generate a demand for their products. War, as ever, was a further stimulus, especially to iron-works like Carron, which was founded in 1765 at the time of the Seven Years War. A supportive infrastructure, both physical and financial, was also needed. Transportation was by horse and boat. While there was a reasonably efficient coach service between Edinburgh and London, cross-country travel was arduous. The biggest fillip to road-building came from military rather economic considerations. In fact because the roads were built to facilitate the movement of troops they did not always follow the routes most favourable to trade (Hamilton 1963: 231). The only way to transport in bulk was by boat and to get from Glasgow to Edinburgh that meant a long and hazardous voyage via the Pentland Firth. A canal linking the Forth and Clyde was started in q68 and completed in 1790. This was a considerable engineering achievement but clearly took extensive capital funding. Like many such projects (think of the Channel Tunnel) financing was precarious and a lifeline had to be provided in 1784 by funds drawn from the Annexed Estates (Hamilton 1963: 237). The concomitant of this capital investment was the develoment of a banking system. 9 The Bank of Scotland predated the Union, but the Royal Bank was established in 1727 and the British Linen Company (Bank) in 1746 (another institution in which Milton had a hand (Durie 1979: II5)). There were a host of smaller banks, not all of them viable. One of the problems faced by the shareholders in the Forth-Clyde Canal was the depression in confidence caused by the crash of the Ayr Bank in 1772. So bad was that collapse that a contemporary report (in London) declared that 'all buildings and agriculture improvements' have stopped (quoted in Smout 1969: 247). 'Improvement' is a key term. A society grandly entitled 'The Honourable Society of Improvers' was founded in 1723. This society was established with the practical aim of reforming agricultural practices (Campbell 1982: II). The 'improving' practices included introducing the 'English Method' (Ramsay 1888: II, 227) via

12

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

new crops like clover, rotation and fertilising as well as the introduction of new tools and the re-organisation of tenure. Particular landlords set about these tasks systematically. Kames, for example, upon taking control of his wife's estate at Blair Drummond, was one such, and as a good member of the Enlightenment also wrote a handbook with the splendidly evocative title, The Gentleman Farmer: Being an attempt to improve Agriculture, by subjecting it to the Test of Rational Principles (1776). (Ramsay remarked that he did a great deal of good though not as much as he meant (II, 229).) The 'Society of Improvers' also aided the development of the linen industry in as much as key members were involved in the foundation of the Board of Trustees for Fisheries and Manufactures (1727). There were in fact many such societies, of which the most prestigious was the 'Select Society' of Edinburgh, which included many of the literati (as they were known) among its membership (cf. Emerson 1973). As this involvement by the literati suggests, the pace and character of these economic changes was not something that happened 'behind their backs'. A number of commentators (see Chapter 8) have indeed seen in their awareness one of the distinctive features of the Scottish Enlightenment. Certainly their social theory does associate societal differences with different forms of subsistence (see Chapter 5) and the contrast between the Highlands and Lowlands seems almost ready-made for that purpose. We have already noted that Smith cites the case of Cameron of Locheil and elsewhere in the Wealth ofNations he uses the Highlands to illustrate the underdevelopment of the division of labour (WN: 31). On broadly similar lines the proposal to 'civilise' the Highlands fitted the conception of the uncivilised savage or barbarian. For example, Pennant's description in 1769 of the Highlanders as 'idle and lazy except when employed in the chace ... and will not exert themselves farther than to get what they deem necessaries' (Tour 1774 edn: 117 cf. 193) is echoed by Robertson's description of the Amerinds as 'languid' and setting no value on anything that is 'not the object of some immediate want' (HAm: 819). 10 This exploitation of their 'economic' environment should not be oversold. The contrast between Highlands and Lowlands can only play that role if it is asked to do so in the first place. Imputed self-evidence is always a shaky historical assumption. The Scots are not primarily 'merely' theorising their own society. It is true that a serious attempt was made to elicit contemporary 'facts' by means of the Statistical Account (1790) undertaken on the initiative of Sir John Sinclair. Every parish minister was to supply for their parish the answers to a questionnaire of some 165 items (Mitchison 1962: 124; for an interpretation of the Auount that sees it as the distinctive product of the Scottish Enlightenment, see Withrington 1987). Notwithstanding this endeavour (the 'positivism' of which should not be stressed) the Scots' social theory never left the confines of moral and evaluative enquiry. If nothing else their roots in the Kirk and the universities would have made such an enquiry central. iii) The Church

After much struggle and bloodshed, and after the accession of William and Mary, the 1690 Settlement established Presbyterianism as the officially sanctioned form

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

13

of Church government and subscription to the tenets of the Westminster Confession was made the test of orthodoxy (Cameron 1982: I 16). (See Chapter 7 (Biii).) Six years later this was put into fateful effect with the execution of a nineteen-year-old student Thomas Aikenhead for blasphemy (even after he had recanted of his alleged view that theology was 'a rapsidie of faigned and ill invented Nonsense' (quoted in Hunter 1992: 224; Hunter discusses the affair in general)). Here, on the face of it, is an event that represents all that the Enlightenment was fighting against. It is, therefore, all the more remarkable that a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment like William Robertson should not merely have been a cleric but also Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Nor was he exceptional. Alexander Gerard was also Moderator and Ferguson, Reid and Campbell were all ordained ministers. What brought about this change? The Union itself should have confirmed the Church's position since the retention of Presbyterianism was one of the articles of the Treaty. Beyond this the Union can be thought to have enhanced that position because with the loss of a Parliament the nearest equivalent to a national debating forum became the General Assembly (Clark 1970: 202). Arguably, however, this enhanced position made it the focus of political attention and this helped eventually the Scottish Church (or elements of it) and the Scottish Enlightenment to come to some sort of rapprochement. There are two strands to this: doctrinal and organisational. Gradually as the new century advanced the rigours of Calvinist theology lessened, not that it ever had been accepted universally or always construed narrowly. The Toleration Act of 1712 proscribed lay magistrates from enforcing Kirk judgements, thus obliging the Church to maintain its own discipline. A crucial marker of the changes was the acquittal of heresy of John Simson, Professor of Divinity at Glasgow, in 1717 and again in 1727. From the 1730s onwards there was a divergence between those who held fast to what they regarded as authoritative Calvinist doctrine and those who took a more 'rational' or less scriptural approach and who emphasised social obligations at least as much as personal salvation (Cameron 196T 1944). Thomas Halyburton, who had penned a vindication of the execution of the hapless Aikenhead, gave an early indication of this divergence when he lamented, 'that a rational sort of religion is coming in among us: I mean by it a religion that consists in bare attendance on outward duties and ordinances without the power of godliness' (quoted in Cameron 1982: 121). The perceived weakening of orthodoxy did not happen without resistance. Inside the Church itself there remained a faction (the 'High-Flyers') committed to an evangelical approach and there were secessions, though even here there is evidence of increased emphasis upon manners and civility (cf. Landsman 1991). Doctrinal disputes were not the only cause of dissent. Equally important were organisational factors. The initially telling blow was the Patronage Act of 1712. This reasserted the right of lay patrons to apppoint ministers. In the royal burghs this right was held by the town council but in the remaining 90 per cent of livings it was held by the nobility either directly or indirectly where the Crown was the official patron (Sher

14

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

1985: 47). Such patronage ran contrary to the entire ethos of Presbyterianism where the minister was supposed to be the appointee of the local Kirk itself. When some lairds tried to exercise their right it did not go down well. Some presbyteries resisted. The fact that the Assembly was less than forthright in supporting the lairds' rights resulted in the emergence of a group known as the Moderates. II These individuals, all on the 'rational' wing of the Kirk doctrinally, wished to re-establish for their own reasons the Assembly's authority (see 'Reasons of Dissent' [1752] excerpted in Rendall (1978): 213-14). Prominent in this group were literati like Robertson and Hugh Blair, who through astute manoeuvrings managed to make themselves the dominant 'party' in the Assembly. It was not that the Moderates were puppets pulled by political strings but that they were eking out pragmatically a mutually beneficial accommodation. As Clark says, acquiescence in patronage was the 'price' which the Church had to pay to continue to occupy a 'central place in the national life' (1970: 207). Keeping the Assembly 'sweet' helped in the 'management' of Scotland (Shaw 1983: 100). While the Assembly upheld and enforced the (legal) exercise of the power of patronage it, in return, was left free from direct 'interference'. In this way candidates sympathetic to improvement and to 'enlightenment' could be more easily placed. This does not mean the Moderates' religious beliefs were insincere. Hellfire sermonising may have given way to an emphasis on social duties (Christian neighbourliness) but a shift in emphasis is not apostasy (cf. Emerson 1989: 79). Indeed both this concern with the 'social' and its continuing links with the theological heritage has been claimed by some commentators (e.g. Chitnis 1976, Sher 1985, Allan 1993) to be a significant contributory factor to the Scots' social theory. Be that as it may - and the level of generality makes it difficult to give definitive substance to the claim - what is evident is that the Moderates were the 'Enlightenment' party. This, together with their institutional centrality, makes the Enlightenment in Scotland very different from that typically associated with the French situation. This difference is reinforced by the close relationships between the Moderate clergy and other members of the Enlightenment, even including the notorious infidel - David Hume. There was a further institutional dimension to these relationships. Robertson, Blair, Gerard, Ferguson and Reid were also university professors.

iv) Universities For a country of Scotland's size and population the presence of five universities - St Andrews; Glasgow and Kings College Aberdeen, which predate the Reformation; and Edinburgh and Marischal College Aberdeen, which were Reformation foundations - is striking. The traditional task of these universities was to turn out ministers of religion, and this continued throughout the century (Cant 1982: 44). This helps explain why law had to be studied abroad and why the provision of a medical education was moribund. As with law, the Dutch universities taught many Scots their medicine (Alexander Monro, who in 1722 was the first Professor of Anatomy in Edinburgh, had studied at Leiden). The eighteenth century saw a

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

I5

marked change. In general terms there was a shift away from the heavenly to the earthly city. Hence medical schools were officially recognised in Edinburgh (1740) and Glasgow (r76o), and Edinburgh established four law chairs between 1707 and 1722 (Chitnis 1976: 135). Two organisational changes marked this move to the mundane. Lecturing in Latin was gradually abandoned. Here an important pioneer was Francis Hutcheson, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, whose personal impact (he was Smith's teacher) as well as his writings (see Chapter 7) have led to him being called the 'father of the Scottish Enlightenment'. The second change was in the system of teaching. The tradition of regents was gradually abandoned (only Kings College retained it). By this system one teacher took the same class for all its subjects throughout its four years of study. It was replaced by the professorial system of specialist teachers and classes. It is, therefore, no coincidence that Edinburgh, which led the way in abolishing regents in 1708, made those appointments in the teaching of law. The practical aspect of learning was clearly important. Aside from the development of vocational classes in law and medicine, there was expansion in subjects like chemistry and botany, which had obvious uses in agricultural improvement and 'industry'. For example, Cullen at Glasgow corresponded with Kames on the chemistry of fertilisers and gave special lectures on the principles of agriculture he had a farm of his own where he put his own principles into practice (cf. Donovan 1982: roo). Cullen also researched into the application of chemistry to linen-bleaching (Guthrie 1950: 62). But the universities were also open to intellectual developments (in which Cullen also made his mark). Curricula were changed, and especially notable was the speed with which Newton's system was adopted and professed (Newton himself gave Colin McLaurin - already a professor at Marisch~l College - a testimonial for his appointment at Edinburgh in 1725 (Chitnis 1976: 129)). Over against these high-powered intellectual developments the realities of the classroom need to be borne in mind. Students generally entered university in their mid-teens. 12 The admittedly precocious McLaurin graduated from Glasgow at the age of fifteen and took up his Aberdeen post when only seventeen, while at the other end of the century Dugald Stewart was teaching at Edinburgh when he was nineteen (Chitnis 1976: 139). Student numbers increased as did the staff. Among the latter there was considerable mobility. We have already noted McLaurin's itinerary and other notable transfers included Reid from Kings College to Glasgow and both Cullen and Black - the two outstanding chemists - from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Inside the universities professors moved chairs. Smith at Glasgow switched from being Professor of Logic to Professor of Moral Philosophy and Ferguson at Edinburgh from Natural Philosophy to Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy. Such manoeuvrings smack of university politics, and in the eighteenth-century context university appointments were, not surprisingly, another arm of the patronage system. The apparently simple fact that the theorists of the Scottish Enlightenment were overwhelmingly university professors is prima facie evidence

16

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

that in this system 'talent' counted. By and large dullards would not be appointed since not only would they not attract students to pay their fees (a Scottish practice that Smith compared favourably to Oxford, where he had also been a student (see WN: 761)) but also that itself would depress the 'market' to the detriment of their colleagues (Emerson 1992: 7). For example, Kames, in writing to Milton to get Cullen his Edinburgh chair, remarked that Cullen will help raise the reputation of the college and draw strangers in abundance (letter reprinted in Rendall 1978: 59). Beyond the immediate concerns of revenue and prestige there was generally an 'interest' in appointing those favourable to 'improvement' (Emerson 1993: 188). This meant in practice appointing those committed to the established order. In that same letter to Milton, Kames also notes that Cullen is a 'fast adherent to the Duke of Argyll' (Rendall 1978: 59). It is no great surprise therefore to discover that Moderates like Robertson and Blair were appointed (respectively) to the Principalship and Professorship of Rhetoric at Edinburgh in 1762 and 1760. They were appointed by Lord Bute, who had inherited the Argyll political machine. Bute was also responsible for placing John Millar in the Regius Chair of Civil Law at Glasgow (Millar was another protege of Kames). Indeed in 1764 seven of the nineteen posts at Edinburgh and five of the thirteen at Glasgow had been filled with Bute's support (Emerson 1988c: 159-60). Of course the universities were not altogether shining exemplars of meritocracy. Nepotism remained. Gilbert Gerard, for example, followed his father Alexander at Kings College (Kings was the most inbred of the Scottish universities - see the table in Emerson 1992: 147) but he was not alone- Dugald Stewart also followed his father at Edinburgh. Even if 'quality' was being recognised in these cases, it was not guaranteed. By all accounts Millar's successor at Glasgow, Robert Davidson, the son of the Principal, was not up to the job (cf. Cairns 1995: 151-2). And there were countervailing pressures. For all Hume's recognised intellectual abilities his reputation for religious heterodoxy was sufficient to bar him from chairs at both Glasgow and Edinburgh. Hume was not sufficiently beyond the pale that he obtained a plum 'establishment' post of Keeper of the Advocates' Library in 1752. Indeed so much a member of the leading coterie of the Enlightenment was he that others gave him their writings to vet for stylistic impurities. This preoccupation with writing well was a striking feature of the Scots' self-consciousness; their awareness that they were both different and special in the context of Great Britain. v) 'Spirit of the Age'

One of the chief reasons for giving Hume a sight of their writings was a fear of 'Scotticisms'. (Of Hume himself it was said by Monboddo that he died confessing not his sins but his Scotticisms (cf. Mossner 1980: 6o6).) The anxiety was that they would appear to be different (suspiciously so) from the norms of Hanoverian England. Alexander Carlyle, one of the founders of the Moderate movf_!ment, remarked in his Autobiography: To every man bred in Scotland the English language was in some respects a

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

17

foreign tongue, the precise value and force of whose words and phrases he did not understand and therefore was continually endeavouring to word his expressions by additional epithets or circumlocutions which made his writings appear both stiff and redundant. (1910: 543) n There is plenty of supporting evidence for this self-consciousness. That a concern with language and style was widespread is borne out by James Beattie, Burne's bitterest Scottish opponent (the antipathy was mutual H), publishing a brief pamphlet, Scotticisms arranged in Alphabetical Order, designed to correct Improprieties of Speech and Writing (1787). The explicit aim of this pamphlet was to put young writers 'on their guard against some of the Scotch idioms which in this country are likely to be mistaken for English' (2). As Beattie's sub-title indicates the spoken as well as the written word was a topic of concern. The Select Society (mentioned already) spawned, in 1761, an off-spring~ the society for 'Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland' (McElroy 1969: 58). In the same year it invited the Irishman Thomas Sheridan (father of the playwright) to Edinburgh to lecture on elocution. These lectures were attended not only by students but also, as a contemporary put it, by 'ladies and gentlemen of the highest position' because the study of elocution had become a 'rage' (Somerville 1861: 56). A further, and related, symptom of this self-consciousness was the vogue enjoyed by English periodicals. The Tatler and the Spectator were reprinted quickly in Edinburgh and widely circulated (cf. Phillipson 1987: 235, 1981). What was attractive in these publications was the attention paid to politeness and 'manners'. In the words of another contemporary they 'descanted in a strain of wit and irony peculiar to themselves on those lesser duties of life which former divines and moralists had left almost untouched' (Ramsay 1888: I,6). Such a concern with social propriety was the corollary of the burgeoning urban culture so that indeed 'urbanity' (and the related 'civility') became positively valued traits of character and behaviour. This attentiveness to politeness and civility also manifested itself in the proliferation of clubs and debating societies. Some of these we have already referred to and among the many others was an especially productive 'philosophical' society (the 'Wise Club') in Aberdeen (cf. Ulman 1990). These various societies were an important part of the institutional fabric (cf. Phillipson 1973a, 1973b). They formed a point of convergence for the universities, the law, the Church and the 'improving' gentry. This interweaving establishes one of the crucial 'sociological' facts about the Scottish Enlightenment. Though academies were widespread throughout the Enlightenment as foci of debate and the dissemination of ideas, the relative proximity of the Scots to each other allowed close and strong, yet diverse, interests to cohere (cf. Ross 1972: 67). This almost corporate identity built on deep institutional foundations and personal ties also helps to distinguish the Scots of the Enlightenment from their predecessors, like Pitcairne or Sibbald or Stair, who, though eminent scholars, had shallower institutional support and, as predominantly episcopalian, were more at odds with the ambient culture.

18

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

The Scots, however, were not purely passive in the face of the English. They tried to emulate the periodical literature by developing their own such as the Scots Magazine, started in 1739 (Murdoch & Sher 1989: 133). (This journal published in 1760 Burne's list of Scotticisms which had first appeared in his 1752 Political Discourses but had been omitted from later editions- see Basker 1991, who reprints the list.) More ambitious and intellectually serious - too much so since the readership was insufficient to give it financial viability - was the publication in 1755 by the literati (including Smith and Robertson) of the Edinburgh Review. In the Preface to the first volume the editors refer to themselves as living in 'North Britain' (quoted in Rendall 1978: 223). This reference is significant because it reveals both their touchiness about being called 'Scottish' ten years after the '45 and their desire to be seen as part of the wider society, to be distinguished by latitude not culture. The Scots seemingly wanted to be simultaneously of a province but not provincial - an aspect of what Daiches (1964) called the 'paradox' of Scottish culture. This fear of being thought to be, in a deprecatory sense, 'provincial' (Clive & Bailyn 1954), while it produced this concern to assimilate themselves to the 'metropolitan' or English culture, nonetheless coexisted with the Scots possessing a 'guid conceit' of themselves; they were not in point of fact inferior to the English. This coincided with the fact that they did not necessarily take their bearings from London. Their European, especially Dutch, connections made them 'cosmopolitan' just as much as 'provincial', as Chisick remarks of Hume his 'experience was European rather than narrowly Scottish and British' (1989: 23 cf. Emerson 1995). This might be all very well in .matters of business or questions of intellect, but political realities ever obtruded. A sore case in point was the raising of a Scots' militia. Here the real issue was less 'Should the Scots have their own militia?' than 'Are the Scots to be trusted?' Various but unsuccessful campaigns were waged to get a militia. To that end, a society (of course) was established. Prominent among the membership of this Club - the so-called Poker Club (see Robertson 1985)- were Ferguson and Carlyle. Smith was also a member, but, as we shall see in Chapter 6, this shared membership did not prevent Smith and Ferguson disagreeing as to the relative merits of a militia vis-a-vis a standing army. Although the British Parliament would not grant the Scots their militia, it had no compunction in raising Scottish regiments to promote and sustain the Empire (Colley 1992: 132). Whenever the Scots ventured into London they were made aware of their status. Hume, whose correspondence is particularly revealing, remarked that 'some hate me because I am not a Tory, some because I am not a Whig, some because I am not a Christian and all because I am Scotsman' (Letts: I, 470). English 'Scottophobia' (what Hume called in another of his letters the 'general rage against the Scots' Letts: I, 383) was not mere hysteria since as Colley argues there was some factual basis for the view that the Scots were 'taking over' (1992: 122). In politics the most palpable evidence was the premiership of Bute, who was the main butt of the popular agitation stirred up by and around Wilkes. However, it was in

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

19

intellectual matters that the Scots' take-over seemed most assured and which gave them the justified high opinion of their own achievements. Hume again neatly sums up this ambivalence as a characteristic of the 'spirit of the age' in one of his letters: Is it not strange that, at a time when we have lost our Princes, our Parliaments, our independent Government, even the Presence of our chief Nobility, are unhappy, in our Accent & Pronunciation, speak a very corrupt Dialect of the Tongue which we make use of; is it not strange, I say, that, in these Circumstances we shou'd really be the People most distinguish'd for Literature in Europe? (Letts: I, 255) Central to that distinction was their social theory. Before expounding that theory, this opening chapter can best be concluded by briefly addressing the question, who were the social theorists of the Scottish Enlightenment? Though there will be some twenty or so performers, eight key actors will be on stage in what follows. In order of seniority here are some programme notes on these central dramatis personae. Henry Home (Lord Kames) (1696-1782)

The son of the laird of Kames in the Scottish borders, he was educated at home and qualified in Edinburgh as an advocate. He was appointed a Lord Ordinary of the Court of Session (taking the title Kames) and later a Commissioner ofJusticiary. He was a member of the Board of Trustees for Fisheries, Manufactures and Improvements and was a Commissioner for the Forfeited Estates. He is the subject of two lengthy modern biographies (Lehmann 1971, Ross 1972). David Hume (1711-1776)

A (distant) cousin of Kames, he was the son of the laird ofNinewells in Berwickshire -his father was also a practising lawyer. He was educated at Edinburgh University and his main source of income was his own writing but he was also appointed Judge Advocate, Keeper of the Advocates' Library and Embassy Secretary in Paris. He is the subject of an important biography by Mossner (1980, 2nd edn). William Robertson (1721-1793)

The son of an Edinburgh minister, he was educated at Edinburgh University and was appointed minister of Gladsmuir near Edinburgh. He later became a minister in Edinburgh itself, progressing to become one of His Majesty's Chaplains before his appointment as Principal of Edinburgh University in 1762 and in 1764 the Historiographer-Royal of Scotland. There is no modern 'life' but there is a lengthy relevant discussion in Sher (1985), Carnic (1983) has a fanciful psychological profile and Dugald Stewart wrote a substantial 'memoir'. Adam Ferguson (1723-r8r6)

The only member of the literati born in the Highlands, at Logierait in Perthshire,

20

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

where his father was minister of the parish. He attended St Andrews University intending to follow in his father's footsteps. He served with the newly-formed Black Watch regiment as a chaplain. He did not in fact succeed his father and left the ministry. After a break he succeeded Hume at the Advocates' Library before becoming a professor at Edinburgh in 1759. There is a nineteenth-century 'life' by John Small and an intellectual biography by Kettler (1965). The edition of his Correspondence contains the most authoritative biography by Fagg (1995). Adam Smith (1723-1790)

The son of a customs official he was born in Kirkcaldy and was educated at Glasgow University and later at Oxford on a Glasgow scholarship. After some freelance lecturing he was appointed a professor in Glasgow in 1750. He resigned in 1764 to take up the better-paid post of tutor to the Duke ofBuccleuch, although the death of his charge in 1766 made it a short-lived appointment. In 1778 he was made Commissioner of Customs. There is a brief biography by Campbell and Skinner (1985) and an important 'memoir' by Dugald Stewart as well as a 'classic' nineteenth-century biography by Rae (1895 repr. 1965) but Ross (1995a) has now produced a full-scale definitive life. John Millar (1735-1801)

Another son of the manse, he was born in Kirk O'Shotts and educated at Glasgow University (where he was taught by Smith). At the age of twenty-six he became Professor of Civil Law at Glasgow, where he remained for the next forty years until his death. Outside the classroom he undertook occasional law cases, principally on behalf of poor defendants. He had the reputation of being a radical Whig; he dedicated the Historical View to Fox. His son-in-law, John Craig, wrote a long memoir (included in a reprint of the Ranks (1990)) and Lehmann (1960) prefaced his edition of the Ranks with a biography. James Dunbar (1742-1796)

The only member of our octet from Aberdeen, he was a son of the minor laird ofBoath (near Nairn). He was educated at Kings College before becoming a regent there in 1765. He remained at Kings until his retirement caused by ill-health in 1794. What little biographical information there is is contained in Berry (1974b). Gilbert Stuart (1743-1786)

Although the son of an Edinburgh professor, he was something of an 'outsider'. He was educated at his father's university and made several attempts to obtain a post there. He made his living as a reviewer and pamphleteer in London while writing works of history that contested Robertson's views (he put his failure to get a university job at Edinburgh down to Robertson's opposition). He is the subject of a biography by Zachs (1992).

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCOTLAND

21

Notes In fact a passage on Bayle written by Diderot was dropped before publication (see Wilson 1972: 743). A brief account of Bayle is given in Labrousse (1983): she is the leading Bayle scholar. All accounts of the Enlightenment pay attention to his impact (e.g. Cassirer (1955}, Brumfitt (1972)). Bayle is part of a general strand of French free-thinkers (other members include La Rochefoucauld, Saint-Evremond) who, via Mandeville, also had an impact in Britain. It is Bayle's links with this tradition, as well as his reputation as an extreme sceptic, that made it politic not to celebrate him in the Preliminary Diswurse. The battle with censorship was a live one; several members of the French Enlightenment, including Diderot, were imprisoned. 2. There was a complementary expedition, led by LaCondamine in 1735 but only reporting back a decade later, to the Amazon to confirm that the earth bulged. Another successful experimental coup for Newton was the return of Halley's comet as predicted (Hankins 1985: 39, 40). Voltaire wrote poems to celebrate Newton's triumph (Aldridge 1975: 96). 3· cr. Payne (1976: 19D-1), 'In a rare display of virtual unanimity, the writers of the Encyclopedia agreed that all societies need a god and specifically one who rewards good and punishes evil.' 4· Not only did Newton think that the 'beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being' (Principia Mathematica Bk 3 (in 1953: 42)) but also implied that God had to 'reform' the system periodically (Optics Q 31 (1953: 177)). This last point was picked up by Leibniz, who said it implied God had insufficient foresight and had to wind up his watch from time to time. Newton was defended by S. Clarke in a well-known correspondence with Lcibniz (see Alexander, 1956). 5· Cf. G. Turnbull, Observations upon Liberal Education (1742); D. Fordyce, Dialogues concemi11g Education (1753); Kames, Loose Hims upon Educatio11 (1781). 6. From the legion of books on the theme of this paragraph a classic is Gierke (tr. 1934) and of the modern works those of Tuck (1979, 1993) are illuminating. For Montesquicu's participation see, for example, Mason ( 1975). 7· The modern classic that outlines this tradition- known as civic humanism or classical republicanism- is Pocock (1975). Though the lexicon may be found in Montcsquieu, the dominant scholarly view is that Montesquieu himself was more a supporter of 'modern liberty' than 'ancient virtue'. For an expression of the 'minority view' sec Keohane (1980: Ch. 4) and Shklar (1987) is a brief overview. More particularly, for a discussion of Montesquicu and the Scots that focuses on the relationship between commerce and virtue, sec Sher (1994). 8. The Board was to act 'for the Purpose of civilizing the Inhabitants ... and promoting amongst them the Protestant Religion, good Government, Industry and Manufactures and the Principles of Duty and Loyalty to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors' (quoted in Youngson 1972: 27). The learning of English was emphasised and the traditional 'dress' was proscribed. 9· Thomas Somerville in his Memoir (c. 1814) reports on the inconvenience caused by the absence of banks and mentions the case of the Duke of Roxburghe having in 1720 to receive a £roo a month by wagon. Somerville also comments how the absence of banks also contributed to the importance (and opulence) of lawyers as money-lenders (1861: 353). 10. The Highlanders were also depicted as especially prone to superstitions - those hallmarks of a vulgar, unenlightened mind. Ramsay of Ochertyre's manuscripts contain a long chapter on Highland superstitions (1888: II, 417-74) and Pennant in his Tour remarks upon the precautions to preserve cattle against witchcraft by placing boughs of mountain ash in cow sheds (1774: 141). Superstitions were not the prerogative of 1.

22

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Highlanders alone. Somerville in his Memoir of his 'life and times' in the borders, also gives examples of belief in witchcraft (1861: 366). 11. The nineteenth-century historian of the secessionist Relief Church commented that they 'were called Moderates because of their moderation as to doctrine and discipline, were openly hostile to the doctrines of grace ... [and] flattered human nature as to its ability to obey the moral law' (Struthers 1848: 188). The leader of the secession, Thomas Gillespie, was removed from his post by Robertson, who, according to Struthers, 'preached on Christian character and practice, overlooking in a great measure those evangelical principles from which all holy practice must proceed' (209). 12. A survey of the social background of Glasgow students claims that the percentage classified as coming from the 'Industrial and Commercial' sector (as indicated by father's occupation) rose from 26 per cent to so per cent between the 1740s and the the 1790s. By contrast the percentage from noble and landed families declined from 39 per cent to 13 per cent over the same period. An analysis of the Industrial and Commercial category indicates that in the 1740s it comprised 96 per cent 'middle-class' students while by the 1790s that has halved with an equal percentage originating from the 'working class' (Mathews 1966: 78-8o). As the author of the survey remarks the fees 'could scarcely have been lower' (93). 13. From the perspective of the late twentieth century this does often seem a fair description of Ferguson's ECS. Carlyle, for his part, thought the Essay possessed a 'species of eloquence peculiar' to the author (1910: 299) while the Wealth of Nations was 'tedious' (295). 14. Ramsay of Ochtertyre giving further testimony to Hume's 'establishment' credentials remarks how the 'junto at Edinburgh' took a condescending view of Beattie's antiHumean Essay on Truth (1888: I, so8).

2

Sociality and the Critique of Individualism Since this is a book on the social theory of the Scottish Enlightenment then the best place to begin is the idea of human sociality. This might be thought to be an unpromising place to start because who could ever doubt that humans are social beings. But this is too hasty. Once further questions are asked- in what sense are humans social? Does sociality rest on instinct or choice or what? - then the issue looks less cut and dried. Aside from picking up on these questions the Scots pursued another line of enquiry. In this they confronted an important factor in their intellectual legacy. The (natural) jurisprudential approach to social relations hypothesised as one of its key ingredients a non-'social' circumstance (the State of Nature). What we also find, therefore, in the Scots' discussions of sociality is a critique of that hypothesis and its associated ideas. Indeed one of the historically important factors that make the Scots worth studying is that aspects of this critique prefigure Burke's well-known assault, without it, in their case, requiring them to revoke their membership of the Enlightenment family.

A: The Evidence The title of the opening chapter of Ferguson's History of Civil Society is 'Of the Question relating to the State of Nature'. Ferguson's aim is to criticise the assumptions and methods of those theorists who talk of a State of Nature. The theorists he has in mind, although they are not named, are Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes. They differ in their accounts but, more significantly for Ferguson, they share the same fatal weakness. They have each erected a 'system' based upon selecting 'one or few particulars on which to establish a theory' (ECS: 2). In adopting this approach Ferguson says they have deviated from the practice of the 'natural historian', who thinks the 'facts' should be collected and general tenets should be derived from 'observations and experiments'. By contrast Hobbes and Rousseau resort to 'hypothesis' or 'conjecture' or 'imagination' or 'poetry'. To these Ferguson juxtaposes respectively 'reality', 'facts', 'reason' and 'science', and it is the latter list that 'must be admitted as the foundation of all our reasoning relative to man' (2). We must, in other words, turn to evidence. The evidence uniformly returns the same verdict: 'both the earliest and latest accounts collected from every quarter of the earth represent mankind as assembled in troops and companies' (3 cf. 16, IMP: 21). All the Scots endorse this verdict, although the militaristic echoes in this particular formulation by Ferguson reflect his own emphases and preoccupations. 23

24

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

By 'earliest' accounts Ferguson means those of the ancient historians (the staples of their educational diet). The favourite authors were Herodotus, Xenophon and Thucydides especially among the Greeks and Livy, Caesar and Tacitus especially among the Romans.• By the 'latest' he means the reports and journals of various travellers and missionaries, pre-eminent among which were the accounts of the various tribes of North America supplied by many authors but by Lafitau and Charlevoix especially. 2 The assumptions at work in assimilating these two sources will be discussed in Chapter 3· To rely (not uncritically) on such sources is to accept that experience provides the evidence. The Scots are in a straightforward sense empiricists. Hume worked up the doctrine to the height of philosophical sophistication and in so doing generated in response a distinctively Scottish counter in the work of Reid and the so-called Common Sense School (cf. Grave 1960). At a less elevated level the acceptance of empiricism meant taking facts or evidence, not fantasy or conjecture, as the baseline. On this basis we have 'no record' of a time when humans were not social (Ferguson ECS: 6). But what about a 'wild man' caught in the woods or a feral child, a number of whom were causes ctfle'bres in the eighteenth century (cf. Malson 1972)? These were individuals who appeared to have had no contact with other humans. However, these specimens were not regarded as authentic counterevidence. As Reid remarked, we cannot 'build conclusions upon them with great certainty' (AP: 548), though, typically, that did not inhibit Monboddo, who uses the muteness of such beings as evidence to support his own argument that language is not natural to humans (OPL: I, I74). Ferguson is clear that every 'experiment' should be made with 'entire societies not with single men' (ECS: 4). This is partly a recognition of the principle of induction - the practice of the 'natural historian' as mentioned earlier in the critique of Hobbes and Rousseau. There is another well-established source of evidence. My own experience is relevant. If I read myself correctly then I am, as Hobbes said in the Introduction to Leviathan (I 65 I), also reading mankind. This underlies Dunbar's observation that the history of the world will be mysterious if the philosopher makes 'no serious appeal to his own constitution' (EHM: 159 cf. Hutcheson On Human Nature: 139). Kames argues that human sociality 'will be vouched by the concurring testimony of all men, each vouching for himself' (SHM: I, 386). This appeal to introspection was frequently made when the joys and sorrows of social life were being discussed; each and everyone of us knows the anguish of loneliness and the pleasures of companionship (cf. Ferguson ECS: 3, 17, 19; Hume THN: 353, 363, 421; Smith TMS: 38, 85, 1 16). What validates introspection as a source of evidence is the belief that human nature is uniform or constant across time and space: what I feel in my breast I may truly infer to be present in yours no matter where, no matter when. (This fundamental belief will be examined at some length in Chapter 3.)

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

B: Explanations of Sociality Although presented with a panoply of empirical credentials, the Scots' position that humans are social is no novelty. From at least Plato and Aristotle onwards this has not been seriously disputed. There is, however, room for controversy and divergence when it comes to furnishing the correct explanation of this fact. The Scots discuss four explanations - the first three of which are examined in this section, leaving the fourth for a separate section.

i) Instinct A common explanation of human sociality was that it was instinctive or appetitive. 3 Kames declares that 'there is in man an appetite for society never was called in question' (SHM: I, 376 cf. PMNR: 79, 136, 139 etc.) and similar assertions are made by, for example, Ferguson (ECS: 11, PMPS: I, 32), Gregory (CV: 1 14), Turnbull (The Principles ofMoral Philosophy: 175) and Dunbar (EHM: 24). Within this consensus there was still room for debate. One central issue was the extent to which human instinctive sociality was similar to that of other animals. Nobody denied that there were limits to this but there was disagreement over its extent. This uncertainty can even be detected within a single text. In his Essay Ferguson declares at one point that, notwithstanding his mental activities, man is 'an animal in the full extent of that description' while having earlier announced that 'we can learn nothing of man's nature from the analogy of other animals' (ECS: 46, 6). In a general treatment of this issue John Gregory is clear that this analogy is of limited validity. While he identifies an important role for instincts in humans and regards reason as a weak principle, nonetheless it is, in line with both received wisdom and modern science,~ the human possession of the latter that differentiates them from animals (CV: 10ff.). In the more particular case of the social instinct Kames is the most systematic. He reasoned that since many animals are social then it was probable that 'the social laws by which animals are governed might open views into the social nature of man' (SHM: I, 377). His approach was taxonomic. In one group he placed animals which are not sociable, basically predators, and in another he put sociable herding animals; these have an 'appetite for society' for either defence or food (1, 380). While this two-fold classification was also adopted by Ferguson (IMP: 23-4; PMPS: I, 2o-1) Kames had a thi~d. Some animals (his example is horses) are social without need for defence or subsistence, and Kames held that their sociality was 'derived from pleasure from living in society' (1, 380). However, this third class is an 'imperfect kind' (1, 381) and when humans are examined Kames puts them into the second class - it is 'evident ... that to no animal is society more necessary than to man for food or for subsistence' (1, 387; my emphasis). Dunbar produced an interesting commentary on this line of argument. He has a distinctive account of sociality and as part of his argument he wished to criticise not the existence of an instinct but the 'message' it conveys. He admitted that

26

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

animals crowd together in danger but he doesn't think such herding significant since they derive 'no security from mutual aid' (EHM: 8). This differentiates humans for 'man alone becomes considerable by the combination of his species' (Ibid.). With an implicit reference to Kames' argument, Dunbar remarks that 'I am not ignorant that [animals] are gregarious from necessity ... and require joint labour for their subsistence or accommodation' (9; my emphasis) but he questions the necessitarian character of instinct. He maintains that through anthropomorphism the role of a social instinct in animals has been misinterpreted so that a 'concourse of animals', however fortuitous, is magnified into the product of a 'social principle'. And in the case of humans they are 'impelled by no necessity' but rather by 'generous passions'. The significance of these passions for Dunbar will be picked up later but in the course of his argument he says a lot about language. He was not alone in this; speculation on the nature and character of language was widespread. Two questions in particular were asked. First, why do humans speak and animals do not? Second, as posed by Rousseau, which is the most necessary: society for language or language for society? (Second Discourse: tr. p. 179) Both merit an excursion. Most Enlightenment thinkers adopted a naturalistic approach to language; its origin lies in human nature. From that assumption they were able to conjecture how language developed alongside man's own development and, simultaneously, to search for that special capacity that differentiated humans from brutes. This latter issue was the leitmotif for Monboddo's multi-volume Of the Origin and Progress of Language. Monboddo's thesis was that language was not natural to man and that in consequence, and quite explicitly, the answer to Rousseau's question was that society came first (OPL: I, 197). What gave his argument its notoriety was that he cited the behaviour of the Orang Outang as proof of its validity. According to Monboddo, the Orang was really a species of Homo sapiens, since, although devoid of language, it nevertheless practised such other human traits as living communally, building homes, possessing a sense of decorum, using weapons, desiring human females and so on (see OPL: vol. I, Bk 1, Ch. 14; I, 2-8, 9 cf. AM: vol. 3, Bk 2, Ch. 1). Dunbar (EHM: 67) and Kames (SHM: I, 44n.) comment on the fact that Orangs and humans both possess vocal chords. Kames simply thinks that possession not crucial while Dunbar refers to the work of Camper, which he interprets as demonstrating that the Orang is organically incapable of speech (203). 5 For Dunbar the origin of language is to be found in natural exclamations or cries, what the nineteenth-century philologist Muller called the 'bow-wow theory' ( 1875: II, 93). Dunbar identifies interjections as survivals of this origin, they have retained speech's 'primeval character' (71 cf. Blair RBL: 67, Monboddo OPL: II, 18r -for extended discussion see Berry [1973]). The second step in the development of language is imitation (EHM: 78 cf. Blair LRB 65, Monboddo OPL: I, 191, Beattie Dissertations: 237 also, more generally, Gregory CV: 129). After the imitative faculty Dunbar posits another- the analogical (EHM: 79). This marks a decisive move because it is here that the 'instinct borrows aid from the imagination'

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

so that it forms 'perhaps' the 'boundary of art and nature' and explains 'the law of silence ... in the animal world'. 6 There is a social counterpart to this because 'every effort beyond what is merely animal has reference to a community' (5). If for humans language and society are co-eval (cf. Kames SHM: I, 44n.) then there is no need to answer Rousseau's question by giving one or the other priority. Two consequences follow from this linkage. The explanation of language is no more mysterious than the explanation of sociality. This makes redundant the need for a specifically 'theological' account of language's origin, as was still put forward by Beattie (Dissertations: 304) and Blair (LRB: 64). It also means, given that language is to be 'attributed to some succeeding effort of the human mind' (Dunbar EHM: 63), that society is a similar 'effort'. Both language and society develop from simple to complex and from the concrete to the abstract. The 'societal' aspect of this is a major element in the Scots' social theory (see Chapter 5). The linguistic aspect focused on explaining the evolution of the parts of speech (see especially Smith's Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages). i In each case there is no need to resort to extraordinary individuals to explain the developments (see section Ciii below). ii) Family

That families are little societies had long achieved the status of cliche. Similarly well-worn was the view that societies are the growth of families, whether from the original source in Adam and Eve or as the product of pacts between fathers. It is no surprise therefore to discover Ferguson remarking that families 'may be considered as the elementary form of society' (PMPS: I, 27). However, in Ferguson this explanation is closely linked to the operation of instinct since he immediately continues that families are 'indispensably necessary to the existence and preservation of the kind'. Their initial bond is 'the mutual inclination of the sexes', supplemented by 'natural affection' (parental concern for their offspring) (I, 31; cf. Dunbar EHM: 18, also Hutcheson Essay on the Passions: 52). Hume, who made no reference to a social instinct, did attribute the origin of society to the 'natural appetite betwixt the sexes' and their natural affection to their children (THN: 486). Despite this instinctive component it is with the family that the human/animal difference becomes more evident. Even so the family as a distinctive explanation of sociality does not loom large. This minor role stems from the very circumstances of human family relationships. The crucial circumstance is, in Dunbar's words, that 'the period of pregnancy ... were by far too short to dispense in the human case with parental cares' (EHM: r8). Locke had said as much (Second Treatise: §§79-80) and Dunbar, as part of his own distinctive argument and probably following Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality to which he was greatly indebted, subjects this fact to further analysis. Since Dunbar wants to argue that society originates in 'generous passions' or unrestricted fellow feeling (EHM: 7, 16, 17) he has to reject the familial principle as too restrictive. He claims that just as the paternal instinct is generally regarded as precarious so the maternal instinct 'at an

28

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

aera further back' may also have been 'fluctuating and temporary' (23). Dunbar historicises the family. We should not, he affirms, generally transfer current practices and assumptions into 'all preceding times' (6). Dunbar also makes a more conventional observation. The fact that humans at birth are totally dependent on nurture means that the parent-child bond is more durable than in animals (18). Ferguson fastens upon this to account for the family's minor role as an explanation of sociality (PMPS: I, 27). This durability results in family ties extending beyond mere instinct. The affection that children have for their parents does not disappear once physical independence has been reached; rather, it grows closer 'as it becomes mixed with esteem and the memory of its early effects' (I,16). While memory is not perhaps the prerogative of humans, the capacity for esteem is. What is important here is less the positive presence of this capacity than what its operation denies. Children do not esteem their parents as a contractual obligation in return for having been nurtured by them. As we shall see, this is integral to a general critique of all such rationalistic or instrumentalist explanations. In this same context Ferguson refers to a principle that plays a central role in the Scots' social theory. He states, as a further consequence of the durability of the child-parent relation, that the instinctive attachments 'grow into habit'. Habit expands the family tie so that it encompasses not only siblings but also a third generation and collaterals. This, for Ferguson, explains how consanguinity is regarded as a 'bond of connection' (PMPS: I, 30). iii) Friendship and Loyalty

For Ferguson there was more to human sociality than either 'parental affection' or a 'propensity ... to mix with the herd' (ECS: 16). Once some durability has been established then the independent principles of friendship and loyalty come into play. In each case they represent a sphere of human conduct that is not reducible either to animal instinct or to self-interested rational calculation. Ferguson indeed declares that the bonds formed by these principles are the strongest of all and this is precisely because they transcend the self-centred quality of the other two. They are for that reason the most genuinely social. As supporting evidence he offers the observation that 'men are so far from valuing society on account of its mere external conveniencies that they are commonly most attached where those conveniencies are least frequent' (19). Friends are those who cling to each other 'in every season of peril' (18). But that is not because they derive some quid pro quo benefit; that would be in Hutcheson's forthright terms to ascribe to it 'a mean and despicable original' (SIMP: 83).H Rather, it is an expression of the intrinsic non-instrumental quality of their relationship. The quality offriendship is one of'resolute ardour' (Ferguson ECS: 17). Friends differ from kin because they are selected (Ibid., PMPS: I, 32). Selection implies discrimination, hence the important distinction between friends and others. But Ferguson does not see this consequence as anti-social, on the contrary he places great emphasis on the fact that this discrimination is a crucial component in the bond of friendship (see further Dii below).

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

This mutually reinforcing duality of friend/ other is extendable into the more general relationship of loyalty. For Ferguson 'our attachment to one division, or to one sect, seems often to derive much of its force from an animosity conceived to an opposite one' (ECS: I6). We can now appreciate part of the force of Ferguson's references to men always being found in 'troops and companies'. The commitment or loyalty to one's own group explains the sentiment of patriotism (I9). The evidence here is overwhelming and unequivocal. Time after time, instance after instance, it has been seen that humans are willing to risk their lives for the sake of their patria. This can only be explained by the human capacity to bond on principles that go beyond both the instinct for self-preservation and judicious calculation of self-interest. To lay down one's life for one's friend or country is not some mental aberration (as Hobbes would have it) but is the very stuff of humans as social beings. As we shall see in Chapter 6, Ferguson's thoughts on this issue are closely connected to his worries about the tendency of contemporary commercial societies to increase the prevalence of calculative behaviour. That humans have both friends and foes is scarcely an original insight on Ferguson's part. That we possess anti-social as well as social passions was commonly upheld (e.g. Hutcheson System of Moral Philosophy: Bk I, Ch. I; Smith TMS: Bk I, Pt. I Chs. 3-5, and see Dii below). Kames continues to use the analogy of animals to support this commonplace. His researches reveal to him that no animal has an appetite to associate with the whole species (SHM: I, 38I) and humans are no exception (388). Not only does this mean that a 'great empire is ill-suited to human nature' (Ibid.) but that humans possess 'dis-social' as well as social passions (403). It was the deliberate intention of Dunbar to refute this theory. His argument was genetic in the sense that he wished to claim that partial affections (both in the strict sense of being non-universal as well as being biased) were not part of original human nature but generated by society itself. According to Dunbar after a prelinguistic phase, humans developed a genuinely social stage before thirdly and imperceptibly moving to an era of civil government (EHM: 2-3). The crux of this second stage is that a 'delight in their kind, congenial with all natures' constitutes the fundamental principle of association (7). Humans have a fellow feeling with and for each other (I6). This means that the principles of union, which as we saw, antedate familial relationships, are prior to the principles of hostility. There must be some social concourse before humans begin to discriminate between relatives, friends and strangers, and it is the very dynamics of this concourse - and here Dunbar's debt to Rousseau is particularly clear- that produce such discrimination and hostilities. The fourth explanation offered for sociality is that it is rational. The Scots reject this explanation but so important is this rejection in their overall theory that it merits an extended treatment. The next two sections are devoted to that task.

30

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

C: The Critique of Individualism The Scots do not deny that humans are rational but it is not their reason that explains their sociality. As Dunbar crisply put it, humans are sociable long before they are rational (EHM: 16). What is at stake here is the adequacy of a particular model of rationality. On this model I use my reason to calculate the best (i.e. most efficient) means to realise an objective. For the Scots when sociality is the issue this model is found wanting. Its inadequacy was intimately bound up with one particular theory, namely, the original or social contract. Since this theory was central to an important strain in jurisprudentialist thinking then a critique of contract necessarily had wide repercussions. The hallmark of Contractarianism is that it makes civil society the outcome of individual rational decision. In this section the focus is on the individualism, the next will concentrate on the rationalism.

i) State of Nature and Social Contract The twin devices of the State of Nature and Social Contract were developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (though they continued into the eighteenth). It is important to stress that they were developed in the admittedly broad context of political thinking; this is why the reference is to civil society. To generalise, the central problem of post-Reformation Europe was legitimacy. What gave that individual, or group, the right or authority to command others? This is only a 'problem' once it is denied that rulers possess some natural, or super-natural (divine), entitlement to govern the ruled. If these abstract points are made concrete by referring to Protestants and Catholics (as either ruler or ruled) then the seriousness of the problem, as well as the breadth of the context, can be appreciated. Once the principle of natural rulership is abandoned then, politically, individuals are on a par. Equality is the natural condition. This same conclusion can be expressed by saying humans are equal in the State of Nature. Since the equality also entails freedom (there are no 'natural' slaves or subjects just as there are no 'natural' rulers) then each individual has the right in the State of Nature (the natural right) to enjoy this freedom. The normative natural equality is thus that of 'rights' and this is perfectly consistent with inequalities in physical or mental capacities. The 'inconveniences' (to use Locke's terminology) attendant on the exercise of these rights resulted in the inhabitants of the State of Nature deciding to create their own artificial political/ civil condition. This creation was the product of a contract. Typically the terms of this contract were that I would agree to lay aside my natural right to govern myself and obey your rule, provided you protected me and did not interfere with my other natural rights. The powerful prescription in this theory was that it equally provided grounds or criteria for disobedience if you renege on your part of the contract then I am absolved from my obligation to obey. The self-interested individualist dimension to this theory needs underlining. In any contract the assumption is that the parties must perceive some mutual benefit-

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

31

I have cheese and want ham, you have ham and want cheese, we can therefore contract (agree) to swap. We are each of us treating the other as a means to the realisation of our separate ends. This transaction not only starts with self-interest it also finishes with it. Once I have ham and you cheese then we have no further interest in each other. On this model, therefore, civil society subserves the predetermined ends of its members. We saw earlier that the Scots dismiss the State of Nature as fantastical, as empirically unwarranted. But it now appears that this dismissal is misplaced. The State of Nature is central to a normative or prescriptive theory (the criteria of legitimacy) and it is not overturned by descriptive considerations. At one level this is undeniably true but at the same time it obscures some significant further aspects. We can identify three. First, the above account of Contractarian thought imposes a misleading simplicity and clarity upon it. On the one hand the Contractarians can admit, as Pufendorf did, that the State of Nature 'never actually existed' (On the Law of Nature and Nations: Bk 2 Ch. 2 Para. 4) and, on the other, cite supporting evidence. There was, for example, much talk of American Indians. Hence, since the Contractarians themselves did not make any sharp distinction between prescriptive and descriptive elements 9 then the Scots have some justification for reading them as putting forward a factual account as to what happened. The second aspect is that even if Contractarian theory is prescriptive, the Scots' critique can still have an impact on the grounds that any prescriptive theory requires some foothold in experience. The central point here is often expressed as 'ought implies can'. If the circumstances in which the transaction of an Original Contract is theoretically held to have occurred are so far removed from any relevant experience then the theory itself is seriously undermined. Instead of being a practically pertinent argument (when to obey I disobey government) it becomes a species of imaginative literature. This sort of writing might open closed minds but it will not be able to do the work required here. Certainly the Contractarians themselves did not think they were writing satires. It is however the third aspect that is most instructive. The Scots' descriptive rejection of the State of Nature is itself a prescriptive theory. In their own account of sociality they are also putting forward an alternative normative account of the authority of government. In the opening chapter of the Essay, Ferguson comments that 'all situations are equally natural'. This means, as he goes on to illustrate, that 'the State of Nature' is 'here and it matters not whether we arc understood to speak in the island of Great Britain, at the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits of Magellan' (ECS: 8). It equally follows that it matters not whether it is eighteenth- or eighth-century Britain and so on. Since the 'natural condition' of humans is life in society then the premise from which norms are generated must also be social. It is, therefore, illicit to generate those norms from some extra-social or extra-temporal perspective. We cannot meaningfully assess the legitimacy of a government by invoking such a perspective, by, so to speak, stepping outside our social selves. The legitimacy has to be found within society. It is still possible to talk of 'natural rights', as

32

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Ferguson and other Scots do, but given natural sociality these rights are not divorced conceptually or normatively from actual social existence. As we shall discuss in Chapter 4 the Scots do not adopt a form of moral relativism - all societies may be assessed by the extent to which they adhere to certain basic moral practices. Similarly the focus on the social context of legitimacy does not compromise for most Scots some ultimately theological underpinning precisely because the 'naturalness' of human social existence, especially its appetitive source, was typically seen as part of a Providential order (see later). Before exploring the Scots' own positive explanation of legitimacy we need to say some more about their critique. Just as Ferguson undermined the idea of a State of Nature by declaring all situations to be equally natural so he undermined the case for a Social Contract by observing in Baconian fashion that 'art itself is natural to man' (6). There is no meaningful contrast between the 'natural condition of mankind' (the State of Nature) and their artificial (made by a Contract) civil or political existence. The most celebrated critique of Contractarian thought is Hume's. 10 He explicitly develops a two-pronged attack - historical and philosophical. The historical critique is straightforward: that government originated in a contract is 'not justified by history or experience in any age or country of the world' (£-OC: 471). (Quite what Hume does believe is justified will be considered shortly.) If the Contractarian account of origins is empirically invalid, it is even less tenable when it claims the legitimacy of current government rests on consent (469), since if 'these reasoners' were to examine actual practice and belief they 'would meet with nothing that in the least corresponds to their ideas' (470). Neither rulers nor subjects believe their relationship is the effect of some prior pact. This is a damaging line of argument. The very core of Contractarian doctrine is that it is some 'act of mind' (giving consent) that constitutes legitimacy so that its absence (an act Hume declares to be 'unknown to all of them') is fatal to the theory's cogency. As we will note shortly, the contemporary political situation (the stability of the House of Hanover) was a more than incidental backdrop to this line of argument. Hume reinforces the argument by also pointing out the implausibility of any notion of'tacit consent'. Locke, who was Hume's acknowledged target (487), 11 for example, held that those who enjoy the protection of the laws (even by only travelling on the highway) were tacitly giving their consent (Second Treatise: §1 19) and it is a signal of withdrawal of consent if they leave the jurisdiction (§121). Hume pours scorn on this notion. He asks rhetorically how serious is any account that claims a 'poor peasant or artisan' who knows no foreign language and has no capital has a 'free choice to leave his country' (475). This is analogous, he claims, to remaining aboard ship and freely consenting to the captain's rule even though one was carried aboard asleep and the only alternative is leaping overboard and drowning. Hume's historical/ empirical refutation was widely followed. Smith explicitly cites his attacks on tacit consent even to the extent of repeating the analogue

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

33

(LJ: 317). Millar adopts a similar line. Merely obtaining some form of protection does not warrant the conclusion that some 'tacit promise of submission' has been given (HV: IV, 303/ HVL: 354). Ferguson regards the idea of men assembling together as equals and as deciding their mode of government as 'visionary and unknown in nature' (PMPS: I, z6z). Stuart thinks there is no evidence and 'it absurd to suppose that the original contract ever happened' (Diss: 15m.). As a final illustration, Steuart maintains that the 'rights of kings' are not founded 'upon the supposition of tacit contracts between them and their people'; their foundation is to be 'sought for in history' (PPE: I, 209). In addition to following Hume on tacit consent Smith also follows him by arguing that contemporary obligation cannot stem from consent not only because it is unknown but also because no contract can bind its successors (LJ: 3 16). Smith also picks up the parochiality of an apparently universalist argument (premised on the natural condition of mankind) by pointing out that it appears to be confined to Britain (Ibid.). Hume's explicitly philosophical rejection turns on a distinction in moral duties (E-OC: 479-80). One category of duties emanates directly from a 'natural instinct or immediate propensity' and operates independently of any ideas of obligation or utility. His examples are love of children, gratitude to benefactors and pity to the unfortunate. When humans reflect on the social advantages of these propensities they 'pay them the just tribute of moral approbation and esteem'. The duties in the other category do not emanate immediately from instinct, they operate only after reflection upon their necessity for social intercourse. His examples here are justice, fidelity and, crucially for the present argument, allegiance. 12 Hume now proceeds to argue that the Contractarian claim to base the duty of allegiance on the duty of fidelity (promise-keeping) is a conceptual redundancy. We keep our promises and also obey our rulers because both are necessary for social life. That necessity is sufficient explanation - in either case 'we gain nothing by resolving one into the other' (481). Though this argument is very much Hume's own, Millar indicates that he accepts its force when he observes, in passing, that referring to a promise 'adds but little' to the obligation to obey (HV: IV, 301/HVL: 353). ii) Time, Habit and Legitimacy

Having in their own lights rubbished the Contract account of legitimacy for its empirical inadequacy, what do the Scots put in its place? Their own positive account pretends to be true to the evidence. I shall discuss the Scots' account of the institution of government in Chapter 5, in this section I wish to concentrate on how this alternative is part and parcel of their commitment to sociality and the critique of individualism. Locke had claimed that in order to understand the 'true, extent and end' of civil power it was necessary to identify its origins (cf. Second Treatise: §r). This typical claim in fact goes a long way to explaining why the dominant reference is to an 'original' contract. Hume argues that the actual origins do not correspond to a Lockean-type story of free, equal individuals contracting with each other. He does allow that the effective equality of individuals means that an element of

34

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

consent was involved in the establishment of government. However, he denies that in practice this amounted to any more than irregular, temporary and ad hoc arrangements; it is clear, he maintains, that there was 'no compact or agreement ... expressly formed for general submission'. (For reasons that will be brought out in Chapter s, Hume observes that any such agreement is an 'idea far beyond the comprehension of savages' (E-OC: 468).) Moreover, even if some element of consent is present it was never the sole principle (474). For Hume all the evidence points to the fact that all existing governments were originally founded on usurpation or conquest (471); that is, 'in plain terms, force by dissolving the ancient government is the origin of all the new ones which ever were established in the world' (474). It was to side-step these considerations that the Con tractarians had sought the touchstone of legitimacy in an original contract, and both Hutcheson (SIMP: 285) and Reid (Practical Ethics: 15) followed this reasoning. But, as we saw in the last section, Hume recognised that this touchstone was not true to the facts; contemporary governments were believed by their subjects to be legitimate regardless of their origins. This recognition sets the agenda for his own positive argument. That is to say he is committed to demonstrating how illegitimate origins (force) can produce legitimate allegiance; how might can change into right. When we recall the circumstances of 1688 and the Hanoverian succession of 1714 then the practical purchase of this entire line of enquiry is not going to be far away (see E-PrS). Although Hume's demonstration is perhaps the most articulate the general principles upon which he draws were shared by his compatriots. The key principle we have already met. The explanation of the facts of obligation has to be sought in social life and not by invoking an extra-societal notion of a state of nature. Burne's account of how might becomes right pivots on the effect of time. But time is effective because it enables habits to be formed. As we have already hinted, the role played by habit is one of the crucial components in the Scots' social theory. For Hume all governments (even despotic ones) rest on 'opinion' (E-FPG: 32). He also claimed more specifically, that 'antiquity always begets the opinion of right' (33 cf. E-IPC: 512). ('Opinion' here refers to what we have called 'belief'; the fact that allegiance reposes on a disposition in the minds of those who obey, see Chapter 5 for further discussion.) This claim echoes the argument that Hume had recently put forward in Book III of the Treatise. In that work he had noted already that the 'first origin of every nation' is scarcely ever anything other than usurpation and rebellion and had observed that it is 'time alone' that 'gives solidity' to the right of rulers to govern (THN: 556). A few pages later he repeated the observation with a significant refinement, 'time and custom give authority to all forms of government and all successions of princes; and that power which at first was founded only on injury and violence becomes in time legal and obligatory' (566; my emphasis). Hume is here exploiting the established principle of prescription. This principle is a standard component in the jurisprudential account of property. That Hume should exploit it reveals his close linkage, especially in the Treatise, with that whole

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

35

body of theory (cf. Buckle 1991). In the Treatise in his discussion of property Hume had defined prescription or long possession as conveying title 'to any object' (THN: soB). Given this context it should come as no surprise to discover Smith in his jurisprudence lectures echoing Hume's argument with his remark that 'everything by custom appears to be right' (LJ: 322). To gloss this: I might not be able to explain how this clock came originally to be associated with my family but the fact that it has been in my family's possession for generations means that it is just as rightfully mine as if I had purchased it this morning. A contentious concrete example would be: even though the British contest the basis of the Argentines' contractual title to the Malvinas Islands, they maintain independently that they own the Falkland Islands because they have had jurisdiction of the islands for over a century and a half and the inhabitants consider (believe, opine) themselves British. The principle of prescription thus provided Hume with an established means to show how what matters is current belief (right) not any set of facts about what happened in the past, 'originally' (might). Support for this interpretation is found in the essay on the original contract. He there uses this same terminology when he observes that subjects from originally obeying a ruler out of 'fear and necessity' come to consent willingly 'because they think that from long possession he has acquired a title' (E-OC: 475). 13 Note how Hume here has reversed the order of normative cause and effect. People consent because they think their rulers are entitled to their obedience; they do not think that entitlement is the effect of an act of consent on their part (cf. 478). Like the prescriptive title to a piece of property so the ruler's title is the product of time. But, for Hume, since time produces nothing 'real' then to talk of property, or title, as the effect of time can only mean it is the 'offspring of the sentiments on which time alone is found to have any influence' ( THN: 509). 14 How does time influence sentiments? Time is the medium, so to speak, through which custom, or habit, operates and 'nothing causes any sentiment to have greater influence upon us than custom' (556). As we shall see in Chapter 4, Hume attributes to custom a decisive role in establishing the coherence of experience; it is indeed the 'cement of the universe' through its indispensable presence in identifying causal relations. At this point it is more useful to concentrate on custom's assumptions and preconditions. A custom is necessarily a creature of time. It is meaningless to talk of acquiring a habit overnight. Walking to work through the park is only a habit if I have done it many times. A corollary of this is that an ineliminable gradualness is built into the process - on each occasion that I take that walk I become more accustomed to that routine. Hume implies this when he states that 'time by degrees ... accustoms the nation' to regard as lawful princes who were initially thought usurpers (E-OC: 474-5). We shall come across this gradualness again. In order that a routine can be established there has to be some fixity or constancy in the experience - I have had that job in that location and lived at my current address for some time. Habits are repeated responses to a stable set of

36

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

circumstances. This repetitiveness leaves its mark. In a common but revealing phrase, habits become 'second nature'. As such they share some of the key features of 'first nature', or instinct. Reid quite explicitly linked them. Both are 'mechanical principles' that 'operate without will or intention' (AP: 550). They can both in this way also be contrasted with rational action. In a straightforward sense rationality can be associated with maturity, whereas a baby's behaviour is largely instinctive (Reid prominently includes breathing, sucking and swallowing in his examples of instincts and these are for him clear testament to a Providential scheme (545)). Habits, too, are especially potent in childhood (cf. Hume THN: 486). The Scots implicitly attach a lot of importance to this point. The very fact that humans are social creatures means that they are exposed to the formative force of habit, they are, as Ferguson put it, 'withal in a very high degree susceptible of habits' (ECS: I I cf. PMPS: I, 209). We noted earlier how Ferguson saw the duration (the constancy) of familial relationships growing into habit. By stressing habit formation in childhood (what Turnbull calls 'early accustomance' (Principles: 99)) the Scots are emphasising the importance of socialisation. A good example of this process in operation is provided by Hume in his account of legitimation or the temporalisation of value. He argues if human generations (like silkworms) replaced themselves totally at one moment then that might give credence to the Contractarian theory. (As Annette Baier happily puts it 'contractarianism is for the butterflies' (1991: 264).) But the facts are different. Human societies comprise continually changing populations, so that to achieve any stability it is necessary that 'the new brood should conform themselves to the established constitution and nearly follow the path which their fathers, treading in the footsteps of theirs, had marked out to them' (E-OC: 476-7). The 'brood' conforms not as a consequence of any deliberate (read, adult) decision but because there is a preexistent path. This path they follow because they neither know no other route nor even consider the possibility of there being one; they have been socialised into it. As Hume puts it in another related essay, 'habit soon consolidates what other principles of human nature had imperfectly founded and men once accustomed to obedience never think of departing from that path in which they and their ancestors have constantly trod' (E-OG: 39). Custom and habit 'operating on the tender minds of the children' thus 'fashion them by degrees' for social life (THN: 486). As Hume's use of the verb 'fashion' suggests, habits or customary ways of behaving not only stabilise they constrain. Ferguson remarks that they 'fix the manners of men' (like instinct fixes the behaviour of animals) (PMPS: I, 232). Echoing Hume's argument about stability, Ferguson goes on to observe that without that fixity 'human life would be a scene of inextricable confusion and uncertainty' (Ibid.). This fixity constrains by circumscribing the range of effective or discernible options. This delimiting of options applies to institutions as well as to individuals. Governments, for example, are restricted as to what policies they can effectively implement. Dunbar thinks it 'seldom in the power of government to mend the morals of a people' (EHM: 51). Likewise Robertson, referring to trial by combat, thinks that no custom 'how absurd soever it be' was 'ever abolished

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

37

by the bare promulgation of laws and statutes' (VPE: 325). Since customs are creatures of time then time, that is gradual alterations in the sentiments of people, is what changes them. Trial by combat thus fell into disuse with the development of 'science' and 'civility'. This example has another message. While the Scots clearly appreciate the conservative power of custom, they also recognise that customs can be bad as well as good, though in either case they are capable of enduring for a considerable period (see Ferguson PMPS: I, 208). Kames' 'improving' essay on The Gentleman Farmer (1776) provides some good examples. He criticises his countrymen because in their agricultural practices they have been 'led entirely by custom not reflection' (361). Custom is so powerful that 'execrable husbandry' continues to be carried on even when remedies are at hand (262). In the true enlightened spirit of Bacon (see Chapter 3) Kames advocated setting up a Board (like that established to deal with manufacture and fisheries - see Chapter 1 (Bii)) which will issue informed instruction for improvement (369-71). For all Kames' conviction that bad customs can yield to 'rational principles' he is under no illusions that this is an easy task (elsewhere he remarked that it is 'a sort of Herculean labour to eradicate notions that from infancy have been held fundamental' Loose Hints upon Education (1781): 282). Certainly he lacks the optimism of a Frenchman like Helvetius that habit and prejudice cannot withstand what Priestley called 'the empire of reason' . 15 The social, anti-individualist, aspect to this recognition of habit, or custom, was widely shared. It expressed itself in a variety of contexts. The critique of Great Legislators is a revealing case in point. iii) The Critique of Legislators

While the use of Contractarian language was widespread it had no monopoly. There was an older tradition that offered an explanation of why particular societies adopted the particular political forms, or constitutions, that they did. Here the focus was on some especially gifted individual who gave or shaped the constitution. This individual was the Legislator, or Law-giver. Like the Contractarian theory this tradition also emphasised origins. While it had a long pedigree in Scotland as elsewhere (see Kidd 1993: 81) it had not died out in the eighteenth century. Brumfitt claims it was prevalent among the Encyclopedists (1958: 101) while Rousseau, for example, quite explicitly incorporates the Legislator within his Contractarian theory. And Lafitau in his comparison of Amerindian and 'ancient' institutions constantly refers to Legislators (see e.g. Moeurs: I, 457). The individualism implicit in this tradition was criticised by many of the Scots, with Ferguson and Millar being particularly prominent. Who were these Legislators? Millar refers to Brama, Solon, Alfred and Lycurgus and Ferguson to Romulus and Lycurgus. (Lycurgus- the giver of laws to Sparta, as portrayed by Plutarch - is also used by Steuart as a model (PPE: I, 218ff.).) The general thrust of Millar's and Ferguson's account is similar. It has two aspects; they explain why in accounts of constitutions these 'persons' are cited and also give an alternative non-individualist account.

38

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

In their alternative the force of custom is decisive. Millar comments that before any Legislator could have the requisite authority 'he must probably have been educated and brought up in the knowledge of those natural manners and customs which for ages perhaps have prevailed among his countrymen' (OR: 177). Ferguson argues that if today in an age of 'extensive reflection' we 'cannot break loose from the trammels of custom' then it is very unlikely that in the times of the Legislators, when 'knowledge was less', individuals were more inclined to 'shake off the impressions of habit' (ECS: 123). Along somewhat similar lines Stuart criticises historians for resorting to Legislators 'before legislators could exist', that is, these historians suppose that in an era of the 'greatest ignorance' the 'most difficult' of the sciences is presumed to have approached perfection (Diss: 222-3). The consequence of this 'en trammelling' is that, according to Millar, the Legislators will 'be disposed to prefer the system already established'. From the effects of this socialisation it follows that it is 'extremely probable' that they will have been 'at great pains to accommodate their regulations to the spirit of the people' and 'confined themselves to moderate improvements' rather than 'violent reformation'. Millar thinks the case of Lycurgus bears this out, because his regulations appear 'agreeable to the primitive manners of the Spartans' (OR: 178). Alfred, too, fits this picture. Voltaire regarded Alfred as 'the English Lycurgus' (see Forbes 1954: 663) and Millar notes how his interpositions have been identified as 'the engine' to explain the origin of various English institutions (HV: I, 271). To this Millar responds that juries, for example, rose from the 'general situation of the Gothic nations' (Ibid.) and the military institutions were not the product of some 'political projector' (1, 181) but stemmed 'imperceptibly' from 'the rude state of the country' (l,179). Hume's treatment of Alfred had been similar. While he does indeed praise Alfred fulsomely (he deserved the appellation 'the Great') he also remarked that the general similarity of his institutions to those found elsewhere at that time precludes him from being 'the sole author of this plan of government'; rather, 'like a wise man he contented himself with reforming, extending and executing the institutions which he found previously established' (HE: I, so, 53)Y' Ferguson argues that the supposed Legislator in fact 'only acted a superior part among numbers who were disposed to the same institutions' (ECS: 124; Stuart cites this argument and closely follows Ferguson's terminology (Diss: 248)). For Ferguson the 'rise' of Roman and Spartan governments came not from 'the projects of single men' but from 'the situation and genius of the people' (Ibid.). Millar adopted the same line, 'the greater part of the political system' derived from the 'combined influence of the whole people' (OR: 177). While both Millar and Ferguson point to a 'sociological' rather than individualist explanation they also both go beyond it. What- and this is the first of the two aspects mentioned above they also do is explain why the individualist argument has been so popular. From Millar and Ferguson's perspective individualist theory of this sort is myopic, it can only see what is in front of its face. As a result only part of the picture is seen, the part that is easiest to see. Millar allows that some 'peculiar institutions will sometimes take their origin from the casual interpositions of

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

39

particular persons who happen to be placed at the head of a community' (OR: 177; my emphases). However, this contingent fact has been exaggerated by individualism into a general explanation. The exaggeration itself is attributable to the 'admiration of distant posterity', which necessarily relates to events and persons that are irredeemably obscure so that they are often 'only recorded by uncertain tradition' ( 178). Like Millar, Ferguson too believes there is a strong element of the fabulous in these traditions (see Rom: I, 3). That aside, Ferguson's chief observation is that this whole individualist approach cannot provide institutional explanations. When confronted with a particular institution or social practice the 'simplest' explanation (the one most obvious to the myopic) is to attribute it to some 'previous design', that is, to attribute it to some individual's will or purpose as the cause of the institution as an effect. 17 Stuart observes that 'it is easy' to talk of the deep projects of princes, it is 'more difficult to mark the slow operation of events' (PLS: 108). Kames gives this a psychological twist when he judges that 'a busy mind . . . cannot rest til it find or imagine a beginning to every art'. As examples of this 'busy-ness' he gives Bacchus (inventor of wine) and the various (female) inventors in different 'cultures' of spinning (SHM: I, 92). Without the psychological trappings, Dunbar similarly thinks the connection of events with an individual is a 'more popular idea' than seeing them as arising 'necessarily out of the system of man'. This popularity is put down to a natural human trait to celebrate 'founders' and 'inventors'. Of course, like Millar, Dunbar allows, there have been such individuals but institutions are 'more justly reputed the slow result of situations than of regular design' (EHM: 61). His account of language (see section Bi above) regards it as a 'fundamental error' to refer to 'great projectors' in order to explain the development of the different parts of speech (93). Individualistic explanations are thus simplistic and because of that are misleading. They remove individuals from their social context, and since humans are naturally social then this removal is a distortion. From the perspective of the history of social theory this is an important conclusion: social institutions - like pre-eminently but not solely the mode of government - are to be explained by social causes. Stuart neatly summarises this point when he remarks that the disorders between the king and the nobles which affected the whole of Europe in the high Middle Ages are 'not to be referred entirely to the rapacity and the administration of princes. There must be a cause more comprehensive and general to which they (the disorders] are chiefly to be ascribed' (VSE: 71; my emphasis). From the earlier discussion we can identify these general causes as 'situation and genius' (Ferguson, who also refers to the 'humour and disposition' of the age (ECS: 177)) or prevalent 'manners and customs' (Millar) or the 'slow result of situations' (Dunbar) or 'slow operation of events' (Stuart).

D: Unintended Consequences and the Demotion of Purposive Rationality We have already seen how a number of the Scots give a role to instinct or appetite in their accounts of sociality. The certainty and fixity of instinct (usually indicative

40

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

- as in Reid or Kames - of some Providential superintendence) was contrasted with the weakness of reason, that 'feeble and fluctuating principle', as John Gregory called it (CV: 19). The critique of Contractarianism was also directed in part against its overestimation of reason's role in guiding action. The more general . implication was that social institutions were not adequately accounted for by the purposive, or deliberate, acts of individuals. That implication needs explicating. I) Social Complexity

As we saw in section Ciii, Ferguson thought recourse to Great Men could not provide an adequate explanation of social institutions; the supposed link between intention and institution is missing. Ferguson obviously does not deny that humans are purposive (recall his views on the limitations of the human/animal analogy). Indeed, as we shall see in Chapter 6, he wants to retain a significant element of deliberate action in political life. Nonetheless, he believes that i11dividual purposive action falls short of explanatory power when it comes to institutions. In perhaps his best-known expression of the point he writes 'nations stumble upon establishments which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design' (ECS: 122).l 8 His use of the verb 'stumble' here is not inadvertent. He wants to suggest the role of 'accident'. This is reinforced by the contrast drawn between 'action' and 'design'. Hence, in this context, forms of government are not simply 'givens' but are the product of human life ('action'). To live in a monarchy, for example, is not the same as living where it snows in winter. But it does not follow from this that monarchy was a 'design', a deliberate· outcome of action. Hume provides a good example of this very point. He points out that the first leader was an effective military leader and that in due course (through time and custom) this ad hoc position solidified into a monarchical form of government (E-OG: 39-40). Hume comments on this process (see Chapter 5 for details) that though it 'may appear certain and inevitable' in fact government commenced casually because it 'cannot be expected that men should beforehand be able to discover them [principles of government and allegiance] or foresee their operation' (39). There are two reason for this. First, humans are predominantly engaged in what is most immediately pressing. According to Ferguson, they follow 'the present state of their minds', they strive to 'remove inconveniences' I'J and aim to gain 'apparent and contiguous advantages' (ECS: 122). Millar argues similarly. He rejects the view that Anglo-Saxon government was the result of'deep-laid schemes of policy', rather it was the product of what occurred successively to the people 'for the supply of their immediate wants and removal of accidental inconveniences' (HV: I, 375 cf. II, 261). What he has in mind here is how Parliamentary procedure arose merely from the nature of the business under consideration and was not 'the fruit of any pre-conceived system of policy'. In the same vein Stuart thinks that feudal institutions 'were not the effect of a plan or the creation of a projector' but 'unfolded themselves under the influence of human passions and human conduct in a certain condition of society' (PLS: 4).

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

Feudalism, Parliamentary procedure and the like are clearly the product of human action but they are not the fruit of design. To deal deliberately with pressing, immediate or urgent matters produces outcomes that were not part of the original intention. This dissonance between intention and outcome is the second of the two reasons mentioned above. Through pursuing their immediate goals humans arrive 'at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate' (Ferguson ECS: 122). Ferguson illustrates this process by utilising (unacknowledged) an image from Rousseau: 'He who first said "I will appropriate this field: I will leave it to my heirs" did not perceive that he was laying the foundation of civil laws and political establishments' (Ibid. cf. Rousseau Disc. Inequality tr. p. 192). This lack of perception is not, like the inability to digest granite, something that comes simply with the territory of being human but is also the effect of sociality. Because individuals are social it means even their most deliberate actions ramify. The current significance of this ramification is picked up most clearly by Ferguson. As part of his argument to puncture the superiority that 'polished nations' like to parade, he observes that their institutions arose not from their superior wisdom but 'from successive improvements that were made, without any sense of their general effect; and they bring human affairs into a state of complication, which the greatest reach of capacity with which human nature was ever adorned, could not have projected'. Indeed so extensive is this complication that it cannot be 'comprehended in its full extent' (ECS: 182). This failure in comprehension means that the process of ramifying complication has produced outcomes far removed from any individual's intentional design. This can cover two general types of case. The first is when a series of discrete purposive decisions by separate individuals produces an overall outcome that none of them individually intended. This case fits 'market', or 'economic', behaviour, and we shall examine Smith's version shortly. But although this behaviour may be self-interested that is not a necessary feature of this first case. Hutcheson, in fact, supplies an example of the general principle where the process operates the other way round. As part of his argument for a moral sense (see Chapter 7) he remarks that while 'we are only intending the good of others, we undesignedly promote our own greatest private good' (Inquiry in PWD: 75/ SB: I, 83). The second type is when a particular intended policy sets in train a series of events that eventually produce results the opposite of that originally planned. Millar, for example, points out that the benefits of the grand jury in curbing abuses of discretionary power is the opposite of its original intent, which was to facilitate an increase in prosecutions (/IV: II, 30). Nor is this reversal unique. He regards Magna Carta in the same light. It was intended to establish the 'privileges of a few individuals' not the 'freedom of the common people' yet it was the latter that came about (HV: II, 8o-1/ HVL: 36o-1). The argument for ramifying complexity thus reinforces that of section Ciii and the critique of Legislators. The freedom of the English was not the intention or purpose behind the actions of the barons at Runnymede although getting Magna Carta 'signed' was. English freedom is for Millar to be put down to 'the general

42

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

progress of society' (HV: II, 340, 8I etc.), but although that 'progress' consists of an almost infinite series of individual actions it itself was not designed. To reduce the course of history and the subject-matter of history to the purposively rational actions of individuals is a misleading reductionism. This is not the same as saying that individuals are merely carried along by the flow of history. It is one of the hallmarks of the Scottish Enlightenment that (to use later terminology) it recognises both structure and agency. ii) Ferguson and 'conflict'

One aspect of Ferguson's thought that has been subsequently highlighted is his awareness of the social function of conflict. This emphasis is usually laid by those who want to underwrite his credentials as a pioneer sociologist (see Chapter 8). Like many such recruitments this runs the risk of wrenching an argument out of its original context. Here I want to associate what Ferguson says about conflict with the more general issue of 'unintended consequences'. In this context two passages in the Essay stand out. In the first of these Ferguson is in fact evoking a well-worn traditional argument and not saying anything novel at all. The tradition is civic humanism (see Chapter I) and one of its leading characteristics is that political tranquillity can be dangerous to liberty. (We will consider this argument in some depth in Chapter 6.) In this vein Ferguson writes that liberty is maintained by 'continued differences and opposition of numbers' and that 'in free states' the 'wisest laws' emanate from the compromise 'which contending parties have forced one another to adopt' ( rz8). It is through each party striving to uphold their own particular concerns that the general interest is fostered. Although Ferguson does not here say so openly, his 'model' is the conflict between patricians and plebeians in Rome. 211 This is part of a familiar story (also told by, for example, Montesquieu (SL: Bk I I, Considerations on the Causes of Roman Greatness and Decadence, Ch. 8)). The internal struggle was deflected into conquest and territorial expansion but this, in turn, corrupted Rome through the importation of what Kames typically calls 'Asiatic luxury' (SHM: I, 473) and an increase in the power possessed by generals; a sequence of events that culminated in Caesar, civil war and the end of the republic (cf. Ferguson ECS: 23I). The whole of this conventional story of the decline of Rome was a ready-made illustration of the power of unintended consequences. There was also a ready-made vocabulary. The Roman themselves, and their Renaissance heirs, especially Machiavelli, evoked the goddess Fortuna to dramatise how human actions and intentions were blown off course to produce outcomes far removed from those envisaged. Sallust, for example, attributes the decline of Rome after the defeat of Carthage to Fortune turning capriciously against her (Catiline: Pref. §Io tr. p. I8r) and Machiavelli's Prince is pervaded by an interplay between virtu and fortuna (see especially Ch. 25). This same language is used by the Scots. Dunbar, for example, states simply 'Fortune governs events' (EHM: 175). However, this idiom is also typically intermingled with the more overtly Christian vocabulary of Providence.

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

43

This vocabulary is a significant presence in Ferguson's second passage. In Chapter 4 of Book I of the Essay, entitled 'Of the Principles ofWar and Dissension', he states that 'mankind ... appear to have in their minds the seeds of animosity' (20). It is because mankind also possesses principles of union or sociality that this otherwise unremarkable statement attains some significance. It is not simply either a comment on human imperfection (sin) or a recognition, as in Contractarian theory, of the need to identify a motivation to quit the state of nature and establish civil society. 21 Ferguson detaches the motivations from the natural jurisprudential preoccupation with government. It is this detachment that provides the best grounds for Ferguson-as-sociologist. In support of his claim for natural animosity Ferguson cites the evidence. Everywhere, regardless of geographical or physical circumstance, humans have fallen into 'cantons and affected a distinction of name and community' and these distinctions prompt loyalty to one's own (see above) and hatred ofthe 'other' (21). Hence the 'perpetual hostilities' among rude tribes and separate clans. Ferguson does not attribute these hostilities to an 'economic' conflict over resources, rather 'we are fond of distinctions, we place ourselves in opposition and quarrel under the denomination of faction and party without any material subject of controversy' (Ibid.). The 'nations of North America' engage in 'almost perpetual wars' even though they have 'no herds to preserve, nor settlements to defend' (22). In addition, this natural disposition to oppose is reflected in sports and amusements; these are 'frequently an image of war' and, indeed, often fatal. These 'facts' are significant for two linked reasons. Not only do they support 'natural' as opposed to sociallyinduced animosity but also, as a consequence, they severely damage a 'materialist' interpretation of history (see Chapter 5). Although this natural animosity might seem to 'arraign our species', Ferguson is now able to itemise a number of positive social consequences. These occur on both the societal and individual level. On the latter, Ferguson believes, that conflict can manifest the 'best qualities' (20) or 'greatest abilities' (24) of men. He cites generosity, self-denial, candour and resolution as examples. The social principles of loyalty and patriotism that we discussed earlier can now be seen to be the by-product of natural animosity. In the light of this Ferguson claims that the apparently 'amicable intention' of disarming envy and jealousy and replacing them with humanity and justice is a waste of effort (25). If we want amicable virtues or principles of union then we have also to buy their apparent opposites, we can't pick and choose. Since these principles of union go beyond the individual then this same conclusion has to be drawn at the societal level. Hence, it is that external threat is 'frequently useful to nations' since it cultivates solidarity and unity (22). Ferguson goes further than this trite observation. He claims that 'without the rivalship of nations and the practice of war, civil society itself would scarcely have found an object or a form' (24); with no 'emulation' from abroad 'we should probably break or weaken the bonds of society' (25). The unintended consequence of aggression is thus to strengthen your opponent and make the success of your assault less likely.

44

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Ferguson's version of the principle of 'asocial sociability' 22 is thus part of the wider recognition that the explanation of social institutions and practices is not reducible to outcomes that emanate from deliberate human purposes. It is also part of a theodicy - the problem of evil, or the reconciliation of human wickedness with God's goodness. The presence of this aspect is evident in the concluding paragraph to this chapter of the Essay. Ferguson, in summation, observes that these reflections 'tend to reconcile us to the conduct of Providence' (25). I shall return to this issue at the end of the chapter. iii) Smith and the 'Invisible Hand' Smith only uses the phrase 'invisible hand' three times but the phenomenon that this image captures pervades the whole of his work, especially the Wealth ofNations. While its presence in that work is its best-known appearance, its occurrence in the Moral Sentiments is well worth a close scrutiny. For completion's sake the third reference is a passing literary flourish in the posthumous History of Astronomy_ll In the Moral Sentiments the phrase crops up in the course of a complex argument. In a sense this is fitting because one of the strands of that argument is that humans delight in complexity and contrivance even though strictly these are purely functional 'means' to some desired 'end'. This 'delight' Smith believes is a 'secret motive of the most serious and important pursuits of both private and public life' (181). The 'pursuit' he considers in most detail is industry or the motivation to attain imagined benefits. The fact that these benefits are 'imagined' is crucial. Smith presents a contrast between the 'real satisfaction' afforded by the palaces of the rich and the 'pleasures of wealth and greatness' that 'strike the imagination as something grand, beautiful and noble' (183). It is the latter, which although a 'deception', nevertheless 'raises and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind'. The fact that Smith a little later contrasts 'real happiness'- understood as 'ease ofbody and peace of mind', a condition that can be possessed by all ranks, even beggars (185)- with the 'baubles and trinkets' with which the rich surround themselves suggests a classically Stoic perspective. Many commentators have duly interpreted Smith in that way u but in the current context this interpretation would miss the thrust of Smith's argument. Smith commends the deception. It is through toil and industry that the earth has been transformed, cities founded, population increased and provided for and 'all the sciences and arts which ennoble and embellish human life' have been invented (183). The implication is that if Stoic precepts had been adhered to, that is, had mankind confined themselves to 'real' satisfactions, then human life would have been crude and impoverished. (As we shall see in Chapter 6, Smith sees nothing ennobling or redemptive about poverty.) Indeed Smith later calls the cultivation of land, the advancement of manufactures and increase of commerce 'real improvements' through which 'mankind are benefited' and 'human nature ennobled' (229). If nothing else this last passage when juxtaposed to the earlier one should alert us to the dangers of building an interpretation on the foundation of Smith's use of the word 'real'.

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

45

It might seem we have strayed from our theme but the reference to 'deception' is a pointer to the implicit presence of 'unintended consequences'. This ennoblement was achieved as a result of individuals desiring to obtain benefits for themselves. The fact that Smith refers to these desires in unflattering terms (they are 'vain and insatiable' and embody 'natural selfishness and rapacity' (184)) and denigrates their objects as baubles is closely related to Mandeville's dictum of 'private vice, public benefit'. It should come as no surprise that this dictum has itself been seen as an expression of 'unintended consequences' (see Hayek 1967). In Smith the link with unintended consequences comes to the surface in the person of the 'proud and unfeeling landlord'. It is in telling his tale that the 'invisible hand' becomes visible as a phrase. This landlord (or generically the rich) cannot literally consume any more than his meanest peasant (or the poor); the human stomach can only hold just so much food (see WN: 81). The consequence is: They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life which would have been made had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of society and afford means to the multiplication of the species. (TMS: 184-5) Two further points are worth making about this passage. To illustrate the principle Smith refers also to the desires of the rich to 'fit up the palace'. To realise that desire means employing many people. Not only does this mean that the 'luxury and caprice' of the rich has provided employment but also that it has provided more employment than would have been forthcoming from 'humanity and justice' (184). This juxtaposition will figure prominently in the Wealth ofNations, and I will take it up in Chapter 6. The second point is that immediately after the long sentence containing the phrase 'invisible hand' Smith continues, 'When Providence divided the earth ... ' This vocabulary was, as we have already noted, common in this context but before discussing it the reference to the 'invisible hand' in the Wealth of Nations has to be addressed, not least because that vocabulary is there absent. Compared to the reference in the Moral Sentiments the context in the Wealth of Nations is more straightforward. Each individual (with capital) seeks to employ it to his own advantage and, in practice, this means preferring domestic over foreign industry. Through pursuing this preference he also promotes the public interest. The latter, however, was 'no part of his intention'; he was led to promote it 'by an invisible hand' (WN: 456). Three comments on this are in order. First, this is polemical. Since the public interest is furthered in this manner then for someone to attempt to achieve that end through design is superfluous. Indeed the attempt is unwarranted since should a 'statesman' take that role upon himself then it would be to 'assume an authority' which cannot even be safely entrusted to a 'council or senate'. This is indicative not only of Smith's critique of mercantilism but also of his positive commitment to the 'system of natural liberty'. That commitment will be examined in Chapter 6, where the political dimension of the invisible hand will be brought out.

46

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Second, Smith does not put forward this process without reservation. What he does say is that, 'nor is it always the worse for the society that it [the public interest) was no part of it [his intention]. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.' Although the general drift of this passage is clear, it does allow for exceptions. Smith has left room for intervention, he is consistently able to license departure from laissez-fairt\ This licence he duly utilises. 25 The final comment is that Smith himself remarks of this process that it applies in 'many other cases'. This reinforces the earlier remark that though the phrase 'invisible hand' might be rare, the phenomenon it captures is not. We will come across a number of these 'other cases' as we proceed but one of them is worth mentioning now. Smith is fearful of the consequences of public debt. However, this indebtedness is the unintended consequence of the stability that commercial societies enjoy. Those with money feel confident enough to extend credit to the government, whereupon government dispenses with saving and relies on tax to repay. In due course the government has to borrow in order merely to pay back the interest on money lent with the consequence that the capital debt continues to grow. The consequence is the probable ruin in the long run of 'all the great nations of Europe' ( WN: 91 1). This is a case (here heavily abbreviated, see Chapter 6 for a fuller discussion) where the outcome of individual actions is not benign. This suggests that for Smith, at least, unintended consequences are not simply to be subsumed under some ultimately benevolent Providential plan. This point we can briefly pursue in a concluding subsection. iv) Providence and Complacency

A number of bold claims have been made for the articulation of the idea of 'unintended consequences' by the Scots. Duncan Forbes thought that their recognition of what he calls (after Wundt) the 'law of the heterogeneity of ends' was the 'deepest insight into the historical process that the rationalist eighteenth century ever attained' (1954: 651). Ronald Hamowy judged the development of the 'theory of spontaneously generated orders' the 'single most significant sociological contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment (1987: 3). In apparent contrast other scholars have argued that in context the passages reveal the continuing presence of a tradition in Scottish Presbyterianism that God uses people for divine purposes that remain unknown to them (Sher 1985: 18o) or that the 'doctrine ofunintention' was part of a still potent Calvinist legacy (Allan 1993: 207-17). Certainly Providence is frequently invoked, but the crucial issue is what interpretative weight to put on this. As a generalisation the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment operate within a theologically underwritten conception of cosmic order and regularity (see Chapter 7). This applies both to individual actions and interactions, both to the possession of a social appetite and to the presence of enduring social practices and institutions. Within this generalisation there is room for nuance. There is little reason to doubt that for professional clerics like Reid, Blair, Robertson (and a former one like Ferguson 26) or committed theists like

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

47

Kames evocations of Providence were no mere rhetorical flourish. The relative insignificance of the individual when set against the solidity and utility of human institutions suggested a 'gap' that only some deep-seated superintendence could 'fill'. Yet as Hume bears out this is not necessary despite the fact that all the key ingredients seem to be present in his thought. He is clearly committed to the idea of the uniformity of nature; he attributes the coherence of society to habitual expectation {cf. Berry I982); and he also accounts for the emergence of key social institutions through a piecemeal accretion of short-term decisions (cf. Haakonssen I 98 I: I 9-20 27 ). While for others these ingredients are evidence of Providential Design, Hume is notorious for his religious scepticism (see Chapter 7). Smith is, in many ways, a test case. MacFie (I967: I07), for example, interprets the doctrine that underlies the 'invisible hand' as grounded ultimately in faith while Campbell (I97I: 73,70 cf. Forbes I954: 653) thinks the phrase 'unfortunate' and that it operates in a supplementary fashion 'to cap a causal explanation with a teleological one'. (Hume dispenses with the cap.) Clearly there is room for debate but Campbell's position seems to me to be about right. Smith does subscribe to the underwritten conception of order and regularity but his actual explanations proceed without that backcloth becoming an actor on the stage. And the example of the national debt is a salutary reminder that the process is not invariably benign. Providentialism is also easily allied to complacency. If all's well that ends well and if that is so thanks to God rather than man, then present hardships and inequities may be accepted. An alliance, however, is not the same as an identity. Doubtless the sentiment that all is well with the world when the rich man is in his castle and the beggar is at his gate was not unknown to the Scottish Enlightenment and doubtless, too, the sentiment could be pressed into ideological service. 28 But that does not mean that the Scots were mindless supporters of the status quo. As later chapters will demonstrate, all the Scots who belong to the Enlightenment, m differing respects and to differing degrees were critical of their society.

E: Conclusion The Scots take human sociality seriously. This seriousness is evident in two important ways. First, sociality is not taken for granted as an axiomatic first principle. There is a conscious attempt to establish it on an evidential footing. While this may not have been philosophically very sophisticated, the exploitation of the classical literature of their upbringing and the ransacking of the various ethnographic reports now readily available reveal a commitment to actual human experience as the touchstone of true knowledge. Having established empirically that humans are social beings, the Scots- and this is the second expression of their seriousness - proceeded to address the consequences that followed. Since humans are social then any acceptable account of human society must start there. It was because much of the prevailing social theory did not appear to do that that the Scots criticised it so wholeheartedly. Individuals we certainly are and rational we certainly are but an individualistic

48

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

rationalism is inadequate as a social theory. The recognition of that inadequacy is what helps to make the Scots historically important. Hobbes, to take the clearest if therefore also the least typical case, deliberately decomposed 'society' into its constituent individual components and then pared individuals down to their basic motivations. Having done that, he believed he knew how society operates and that he could prescribe how it should be organised so that it would operate effectively. For the Scots this represents a false reductionism. Society and its institutions cannot be accurately understood in this manner. If these institutions are thought of as something in need of explanation then the principle of explanation must be commensurate. Social institutions require social explanations. What counts as an explanation was a question the Scots asked. How they asked it and what answers they came up with it is the subject-matter of the next chapter. Notes I. Hume thought that the first page ofThucydides was 'the commencement of real history' (E-PAN: 422) and Smith believed that no author has 'more distinctly explained the causes of events than Thucydides' (LRBL: 95); Smith thought Livy the best of the Latin historians (108). See Chapter 3 for the importance of the reference to 'causes'. 2. J. Lafitau Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains (1724); P. Charlevoix Journal historique d'un voyage de /'Amerique (1744). Millar, for example, in his Ranks cites each author 6 times (Caesar's De Bello Gallico and Tacitus' Germania were cited IO and 8 times respectively); Ferguson cites Charlevoix I3 times and Lafitau 5 times in the Essay. 3· Reid (AP: 545) distinguishes these where an instinct equals a 'mechanical principle' and an appetite equals an 'animal principle' but also admits that this is a distinction for distinction's sake. 4· He draws support from Buffon's comprehensive and vastly influential Natural History (1749 onwards) and cites his judgement that there is an 'infinite distance' between human faculties and those of the 'most perfect animal' (CV: 10). Buffon himself in his Natural Histo~y of Man, which was part of the multi-volumed Natural History, still differentiated humans by the traditional criteria of reason, language and the possession of a soul (III, sect. I). Gregory, who was a doctor, also cites (7) the work of Stahl and while criticising the presentation of his argument states his approval of Stahl's opposition to mechanism and its superiority to (by implication) La Mettric (sec Chapter r ). Gregory is here tip-toeing around the edge of a lively debate. Stahl's ideas were criticised by Cullen but had been picked up, though still critically, by Whytt, Cullen's predecessor at Edinburgh (cf. Hankins 1985: 124; Wright I990 is especially informative). Gregory's book was translated into French by Robinct and his view of instinct criticised by Diderot (cf. Hastings I936: I36n.). 5· Dunbar also thinks standardly that the Orangs need an enlargement ofideas but believes that the ideas of animals are fixed. For Monboddo it is the capacity of acquiring higher faculties not their actual possession that differentiates human nature (see letter to Harris in Knight I900: 73, cf. Cloyd I972: 64). He thinks the Orang and large monkeys stand to humans as the ass does to the horse (letter to Pringle in Knight 1900: 85), and because they cannot speak is not sufficient reason .to deny them 'the appellation of men' (OPL: I, 176n.). For discussion of the debates raised by the Orang see Wokler . ( I976, I988). 6. Although he does not cite Dunbar's work this passage gives a perfect exemplification of Aarsleff's (I974: I04-5) thesis that the point behind the search for the origins of

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

7·

8. 9·

IO.

I 1.

12.

I3.

49

language was an attempt to get down to basic principles in order to distinguish what was owing to nature and what to art. For a detailed discussion of Dunbar on 'analogy' and its links with associationist psychology, see Berry I987. For example, substantive nouns predate adjectives, impersonal verbs predate personal and prepositions and pronouns 'expressing so very abstract and metaphysical idea would not easily or readily occur to the first formers of language' (Considerations in LRBL: 219 cf. 214, 2I3 etc.). (For discussion of Smith's argument, see Land (I977) and for a comparative analysis, see Berry (I974a)). Smith's argument was closely followed by Dunbar (to the extent of using the same example- cf. EHM: 83 Consids: 216) and drawn upon by Blair (LRB: IOI) and even by Monboddo despite basic disagreements (OPL: II, 45). Hutcheson's account is close to Aristotle's account of philia since he stresses its basis in moral excellence and defines friendship as 'the affectionate union of minds resembling each other in virtuous manners' (SIMP: 84). There is extensive secondary commentary on this point. For example that Locke's account of the State of Nature in the Second Treatise contained a historical as well as a normative component is argued by several commentators, for example Ashcraft (I 968) and reiterated with discussion of other interpretations in Ashcraft (I987). There is a large body of commentary. For contextual discussions see especially Buckle & Castiglione (I991) and Thompson (I977); less historical and more analytical are Gauthier (I979) and Brownsey (1978). A good general exposition is to be found in Miller (1981). That Hume's account is pivotal in the history of Contractarian thought is upheld by Lessnoff (1986). Why Locke should have been thus singled out is largely explained by the role that he was seen as playing in early eighteenth-century British political debate (cf. Thompson I976, Kenyon I977, Dickinson I977). Locke's route into the Scottish Enlightenment is not straightforward but it would seem that Carmichael's commentary on Pufendorf (much praised by Hutcheson, see SIMP Preface) is an important conduit (see Moore & Silverthorne 1983, 1984). In the Treatise justice (and the others) are called 'artificial' virtues. In part this earlier term reflects Hume's closer adherence to the Contractarian/jurisprudential approach and its omission in the later Essay is a deliberate ploy by Hume to avoid interpretative confusion (the idea that justice was 'artificial' was criticised by many of his contemporaries- most notably and reflectively by Reid (AP: s, I) but also by Kames PMNR: 6sff., I29ff.). Even Smith thought Hume had overstated utility (TMS: 87ff.). In the Treatise Hume had declared that 'artificial' was not to be contrasted with 'natural' in the sense of'inseparable from the species' (THN: 484); justice is a necessary invention and when any invention is absolutely necessary it can be said to be as 'natural' as 'anything that proceeds immediately from original principles'. Vlachos (I955: 38) sees Hume's thought in the Treatise as steering (like Pufendorf's) a middle course between Hobbes and Locke. See Chapter 6 for an extended discussion of justice. Hume also uses the phrase in the politically charged context of the Hanoverian succession - 'long possession ... must ere this time, in the apprehension of a great part of the nation, have begotten a title ... independent of their present possession' (E-PrS: 511).

I4. Cf. Smith LJ: 32, 37· Kames had included a treatment of prescription in his Essays upon Several Subjects in Law (1732) - and reiterated in ELS (Art. 33) - where he criticised the standard natural law account and linked property rights to the psychological feelings of ownership (see Ross (I972): 36). This would seem to have had some impact upon Smith and arguably also paved the way for Hume's exploitation. 15. Priestley, Letter to Burke (1791) in Writings (1965: 255 cf. I98). Cf. Passmore I970: esp. Chs. 9 and 10. 16. Forbes regards Hume's views on Legislators as one of the areas where he differs from

50

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

the other Scots (1975a: 308). In support he cites (316) Hume's reference to 'Legislators and founders of states who transmit a system of laws and institutions' (E-PG: 54). Despite this, Forbes is also quick to point out Hume's awareness of the gradual process whereby laws are slowly developed. Indeed in another essay this gradualism makes Hume undermine the case for a Legislator: 'To balance a large state or society, whether monarchical or republican, on general laws, is a work of so great difficulty that no human genius, however comprehensive, is able, by the mere dint of reason and reflection to effect it. The judgments of many must unite in this work ... ' (E-AS: 124). Since the sentiments here jell so well with Hume's general argument (as exemplified in his view of Alfred) Forbes may be judged to have overdrawn Hume's distinctiveness. 17. In his history of the Roman republic he is more even-handed. Referring to those institutions that the Romans themselves ascribe to Romulus and Numa, he remarks that whether they were the 'suggestions of a particular occasion' or the 'invention of ingenious men directed by deep premeditation' does not detract from their existence (Rom: I, u). Kames too at one point implies that he accepts that Lycurgus was a real person (SHM: I, 487). On 'Euhemerism' (the doctrine that mythical personages were in fact historical) generally, see Manuel 1959: 8sff. 18. This phrase is frequently cited by Hayek, see Chapter 8. 19. This term probably deliberately echoes Locke (see Second Treatise: §13), though Hume, too, had used it in the same context (THN: 485), also Kames HLT: 20. 20. Ferguson details the struggle in Rom: I, Chs. 2 and 3· Although he points out defects he also comments that the Romans 'enjoyed the most envied distinction of nations, continual prosperity and almost uninterrupted succession of statesmen and warriors elsewhere unequalled in the history of mankind' (90). 2r. Hobbes, with his depiction of 'natural' life as nasty and brutish may have given an unacceptably dramatic version of this motivation (Leviathan: Ch. 13) but Locke refers to the 'corruption and vitiousness of degenerate men' (Second Treatise: §128) and Pufendorf to man being 'at all times malicious, petulant, and easily irritated, as well as quick and powerful to do injury' (On the Law of Nature and Nations: 2-3-15). Neither Locke nor Pufendorf regard this as the whole truth about the natural condition but both require some such traits to provide a reason to contract out of the State of Nature and establish civil government. 22. This particular term (ungesel/ig Geselligkeit) is Kantian (Idea for a Universal History [1784] tr. 1963: 15). Ferguson's work was popular in Germany (the Essay was translated into German in 1768) - see Oz-Salzburger, 1995 - although the notion captured by that term is hardly his alone; for a brief survey (that does not include the Scots) see Wood (1972). 23. Smith writes, '. . . heavy bodies descend and lighter substances fly upwards by the necessity of their own nature; nor was the invisible hand of Jupiter ever apprehended to be employed in those matters' (EPS: 49). The context is the polytheism of savages and heathen antiquity. The presence of the phrase here appears to have been noticed first by MacFie (1971). 24. Cf. inter alia MacFie (1967), Dwyer (1987), Macintyre (1985), Sher (r985) and (the most developed) Brown (1994). But Stoicism is a philosophical language with many idioms. For a fuller discussion doubting the active role of Stoicism in Smith, see Berry (1994). 25. Scholars have identified these departures. For a good survey, see Skinner (1974a). In Chapter 6 we will see a significant illustration of this in his view of education as an antidote to some of the consequences of the division of labour. 26. Ferguson does not always invoke Providence. Commenting on the wide distribution of power, he says that this favourable result was the work of 'a species of chanct!' rather than anything 'human wisdom could ever calmly devise' (ECS: 237). 27. Haakonssen calls Hume's account of justice as the unintended consequence of individual

SOCIALITY AND THE CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

human actions 'one of the boldest moves in the history of the philosophy oflaw' (1981: zo). z8. Shcr thinks the Providentialism that enwrapped the notion of 'unintended consequences' was part of a 'profoundly conservative doctrine' that was central to the ideological role played in Scottish society by the Moderate clergy (1985: 327, 53-4, 205, 240, 189 etc.). On 'ideology' sec Chapter 8.

3

Science, Explanation and History For the Enlightenment 'science' was a powerful weapon to hurl against the forces of darkness. Nowhere was this potency more evident than in the achievements of natural science. In a celebrated snatch of verse Alexander Pope captured the impact of the greatest scientist: Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light. For thinkers of the Enlightenment, with Scotland at the forefront, Newton's achievement was both a model and a challenge. He had shown what could be done and how to do it. The challenge was to emulate his work; to achieve for the moral or social sciences what he had done for natural science. Newton himself speculated on precisely these lines. In his Optics he remarked that if, through pursuit of his method, natural philosophy becomes perfected, so, in like fashion, 'the bounds of Moral Philosophy will be also enlarged' (Qp.. 31 (1953: 179)). Clear proof that this remark did not go unheeded is provided by its presence on the title-page of George Turnbull's The Principles of Moral Philosophy (1740). (Turnbull even worked it into his Treatise on Ancient Painting (1740): 134.) Turnbull was not alone in following Newton's agenda. What this shared aspiration reveals is that the social theorists of the Scottish Enlightenment should not be identified as a breed apart from social scientists. For the Enlightenment as a whole any sharp such division would have seemed perverse. Of course some discrimination can be made. There is a difference between the laboratory-based experimental science of Cullen or the mathematical investigations of McLaurin and the work of Turnbull. Nevertheless it is important to appreciate that the Scottish social theorists were engaged in a scientific enterprise as they understood it. The assumptions and character of that enterprise arc the subject of this chapter. A: Baconianism The Enlightenment was the heir of the 'scientific revolution' of the seventeenth century. In Scotland this legacy can be plotted via the changes in university curricula. For example, in Aberdeen between 166o and 1670 Aristotle was replaced with Descartes and Cartesianism was in turn superseded by Newton between 1690 and 1710 (Wood 1993: 6-7). The story is much the same in the other Scottish universities (cf. Shepherd 1982). Newton was not alone; Locke and Bacon also made an impact. The importance of these changes in university curricula is that, as we sketched in Chapter 1, they helped to sow the seeds that bore fruit as the Scottish Enlightenment. 52

SCIENCE, EXPLANATION AND HISTORY

53

If we leave to one side the actual discoveries and achievements of Newton, Boyle, Huyghens and others, we can best sum up the general pervading 'scientific' spirit in the label 'Baconianism'. Bacon himself was not a scientist but, rather, was a propagandist on science's behalf; as Hume put it, he 'pointed out at a distance the road to true philosophy' (HE: II, 112) (cf. Walton I990 for a detailed comparison of Bacon and Hume). He campaigned for old practices to be swept away. Included in this campaign were not only medieval scholasticism but also two other trends in early modern thought: the alchemical tradition, with its reliance on individual practitioners of natural magic, and scepticism, with its philosophy that all was uncertain or doubtable. But arguably more important than this negative element were Bacon's positive proposals. He redrew the map of knowledge in order to advance learning. The new cartography was based on the three faculties of Memory, Imagination and Reason, to which corresponded the three divisions of human learning- history, poetry and philosophy (Advancement of Learning: Bk 2, Ch. I (1853= n-8)). The basis of this advance was 'genuine induction' (New Organon: Bk 1, sect. xiv (I853: 386)). One mark of Bacon's impact is terminology. He divided history into natural and civil. The latter deals with human affairs whereas the former (a 'new kind' AL: In trod. [ 17]) encompassed not only the history of animals and plants but also the 'history of arts'. Bacon was critical of those who separated nature from artifice; the history of arts is the history of 'nature wrought' or 'in constraint' (AL: Bk 2, Ch. 2, 79). This understanding of the history of arts (or 'mechanical history' (Ibid.: 82) narrows the distance between natural and civil history and it is possible to see the Scots' universalistic conception of history (see Cii below) as effectively assimilating them.' The purpose behind natural history was not mere data collection but also, and this is of especial significance as we shall see, 'to afford light to the discovery of causes' and provide thereby 'a foundation to [natural] philosophy' (AL: Introd. I6-17). Philosophy itself encompassed God, nature and man (AL: Bk 3, Ch. I, I I6). This ambit proved to have two useful effects. First, it helped deflect charges of atheism that were levelled against some forms of 'new learning' (see Webster 1975: SIS). Second, by lumping nature and man together under the label 'philosophy', the foundations for Newton's conviction that natural and moral science might methodologically advance together had been laid. Bacon himself explained that his division of the sciences was only a convenience and was without prejudice to their unity (AL: Bk 4, Ch. I, 151). There is another element in Bacon's legacy. His whole project had a resolutely utilitarian bent. The discoveries of philosophy are not for their own sake since the 'real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches' (NO: Bk I, sect. lxxxi, 416). This goal was institutionalised by the setting up of the Royal Society (Webster 1975: 99) and more generally it jelled with the ethos of 'improvement'. The 'improvers' were centrally concerned to apply 'science' in order to make land increase its yield (agriculture, for Bacon, was an example of 'nature wrought'). John Gregory crisply summarises what is

54

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

involved in Baconianism when he observes, 'the civil and natural history of Mankind becomes a study not merely fitted to amuse and gratify curiosity, but a study subservient to the noblest views, to the cultivation and improvement of the Human Species' (CV: 19). And Bacon himself laid down the governing principle of this joint aim in perhaps his best-known proposition, 'knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect' (NO: I, iii, 383 cf. AL: Introd. zo).Z If we couple that proposition with the aspiration to emulate Newton then we have a succinct. characterisation of the Scots' approach and ambition.

B: Causal Explanation Thanks to Newton we now know why the orbit of the planets is what it is and, moreover, we also know that the explanation of that celestial motion is of a piece with the explanation of terrestrial motion (why the apple when detached from its branch falls to the ground). But why is it that the Amerinds worship many gods? Why is it that the status of women was higher in the feudal era than in earlier times? Why is political power at its most unbridled among the nomadic tribes of Asia? Why do we now treat our prisoners-of-war with more humanity than in the past? Questions such as these require an answer. And not only that, we also need to know if the answers given to one question have any bearing on the answers to the other questions. The way to provide these answers was to see these various social practices as 'effects' to which appropriate 'causes' can be identified. The social theory of the Scottish Enlightenment was a search for such causes and for the connecting links between the causes. Later chapters will cover the actual answers they came up with, here we are interested in their procedure or methodology in arriving at those answers. i) Narrative Links

In the Preface to the Historical Law Tracts Kames laments that law has not been treated or studied effectively. The standard practice is to treat it like geography'as if it were a collection of facts merely' (HLT: iii). What is needed, instead, is a historical approach. Only upon the adoption of that method will law become a 'rational study'. Nor is law exceptional. In this same context Kames also refers to 'manners' and 'arts' and, a little later, adds 'the constitution of a state' and 'its government' (iv). These are all examples of basic social institutions. What makes them 'basic' is their permanency. But the permanent is not the immutable. There is change but that itself presupposes something enduring. I, Chris Berry, have changed physically and emotionally since I was eighteen but thirty years on I am still Chris Berry: the personal pronoun refers to an enduring subject (identity). The fact that identity can be lost is not here relevant. What matters is, first, that personal identity has a temporal or narrative structure and, second and as a consequence, that the way to understand me today is to retell the story of my life. The upshot of all this is

SCIENCE, EXPLANATION AND HISTORY

55

that to understand basic social institutions means to tell the story, to write history. This is important. The Scots' social theory is to a large extent and for this reason presented as history. Hume said in an oft-quoted letter that he believed 'this is the historical Age and this the historical Nation' (Letts: II, 230). In part this belief reflected the popularity of historical works and, in his own case, on the fact that this popularity could bring considerable financial rewards) There are however different ways of writing history and different reasons for writing it. What best characterises history-as-social theory is the scientific endeavour to explain. For Kames, law is a 'rational science' (HLT: xiv cf. Stuart VSE: vi) when 'reason is exercised in discovering causes and tracing effects through a long chain of dependencies' (v). 4 By this means an overall structure or order can be discerned. What he calls 'events and subordinate incidents' are 'linked together and connected in a regular chain of causes and effects' (iii). In his later Sketches Kames repeats the point with emphasis: 'The perfection of historical composition ... is a relation of interesting facts connected with their motives and consequences. A history of that kind is truly a chain of causes and effects' (SHM: I, 148). These repeated references to 'causes' betray the presence of the pervasive Baconianism. It also reflects a long-standing definition of history as 'philosophy teaching by examples'. 5 This combination of the Baconian stress on causes and history as instruction can be seen in Smith's rhetoric lectures. He is reported to have professed that The design of historicall writing is not merely to entertain ... besides that it has in view the instruction of the reader. It sets before us the more interesting and important events of human life, points out the causes by which those events were brought about and by this means points out to us by what manner and method we may produce similar good effects or avoid similar bad ones. (LRBL: 90) In the following lecture Smith, like Kames, identifies the connection between cause and effect as the one in which 'we are so interested'. It is the key to historical narration since 'we are not satisfied' with just having 'a fact told us which we are at a loss to conceive what it was that brought it about' (98). It is because in Smith's judgement it is Thucydides who has 'more distinctly explained the causes of events' than any other author that he is pre-eminent among historians (95 cf. 106). Hume, too, thinks very highly of Thucydides (E-PAN: 422) and Kames explicitly commends him for his recourse to causal explanation, though he reverses Smith's order of merit by regarding Tacitus as his superior in that regard (SHM: I, 148). ii) Chance and Regularity

In addition to his disparagement of 'geographers' in the Preface, Kames also denigrates the sort of history 'much relished by the vulgar' (HLT: iv). What the vulgar like are histories of war and conquest, not histories of institutions such as law. More significant is why they prefer the former. A war is 'a singular event'

S6

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

and, like all such events, because of 'the prevalence of chance or fortune', it 'excites wonder' (we will meet this terminology again). The important contrast here is between rational history, which traces causal chains, and writing which catalogues 'facts'. A 'bare recital of facts' is 'uninteresting' (Gregory CV: 221) and, to the scientific historian, was the prerogative of chroniclers or annalists.~> Though not without some merit, the special fault of annalists was that they detached their facts from their antecedents. Why a particular event happened when it did is not explained or, what is the same thing, it is put down to chance. Hume is instructive on this point. In the opening paragraphs of his essay 'Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences' he comments generally on the need to distinguish chance and cause (E-AS: I I I). If an event is put down to chance then it precludes all further enquiry. This leaves everybody (including the enquirer) in a 'state of ignorance'. However, when an event is 'supposed to proceed from certain and stable causes' then this advances the enquiry and, by means of this advance, it uncovers 'what escapes the vulgar and the ignorant'. Hume does not deny there is a distinction between chance and cause ('certain and stable') but it is not a distinction in kind. He illustrates it with the performance of a biased die. In a few throws the bias will not reveal itself but it 'will certainly prevail in a great number' (uz). Millar uses a very similar example. He supposes that in one or two throws of a die very different numbers will be produced but 'in a multitude of dice thrown together at random the result will be nearly equal' (OR: 177). Millar uses this example to underline the difference between 'the character and genius of a nation' and that of an individual. In the former, 'fixed causes' can be identified. The context is the attack on the explanatory utility of Legislators that was discussed in Chapter 2. The significance of that attack (we recall) was to undermine purposive i11dividual design as the explanation of social institutions. Hume's use of the die was in this way a means of pointing up the difference between the multitude and particular individuals. The latter may by chance escape 'common affection' and 'be ruled by passions peculiar to themselves' but the former will be 'governed' by that affection 'in all their actions' (112). Despite this difference Hume's use here of two similar verbs ('ruled' and 'governed') indicates why the distinction is one of degree and not kind. This is made explicit when in this same essay he twice refers to 'chance, or secret and unknown causes' (112, 114. In the Treatise he had referred to 'what the vulgar call chance' as 'nothing but a secret and conceal'd cause' (THN: IJO). Cf. Kames PMNR: I95). If chance really did operate then it would be impossible to talk of passions 'ruling' even in a particular case, for 'rule' presupposes some traceable linkage between a passion and an outcome: I hit you because I was enraged by your behaviour and not coincidentally as a result of my arm lifting. More generally it would reduce events to sheer chaotic randomness. The work of science, however, is to discover cosmos in chaos. The way it has done that, as Newton has recently and triumphantly demonstrated, is by eliciting general rules that themselves represent stable causal relations. It was a major element in Hume's philosophical

SCIENCE, EXPLANATION AND HISTORY

57

programme - and the element upon which much of his current renown as a philosopher rests - to analyse exactly what constitutes a causal relation.

iii) Hume on Causation Hume's analysis of cause has produced a veritable library of commentary.? My aim here is modest. The briefest outline of his argument will be enough. The guiding principle is how Hume's analysis fits into his broader programme. For all Hume's heightened philosophical acumen (only Reid is a serious rival) this programme was widely shared among his fellow social theorists. For example, Gregory, who is one of Hume's critics, nevertheless affirms that there are 'laws of the mental constitution' (just as there are of the physical system) which operate in a 'fixt and invariable manner' (CV: 5). Hume accepts Locke's argument that the principle of innate ideas is false (THN: 160), and its consequence that 'knowledge' must come from experience. Experience comes in the form of 'perceptions', which Hume divides into 'impressions' and 'ideas' (1). The former precede the latter, all our simple ideas proceed from some impression (5); a principle that Hume identifies as the first he has established in 'the science of human nature' (7). These simple ideas can be separated and reunified and made complex by the imagination. We can in this way obtain the idea of a unicorn without, of course, ever perceiving such a thing. However, the imagination is not fickle in its operations, for Hume believes that it is guided by 'some universal principles which render it, in some measure, uniform with itself in all times and places'. There is a 'gentle force', an 'associating quality', whereby simple ideas regularly fall into complex ones (10). There are three principles of associationresemblance, contiguity of time and place, and cause and effect (11). While strictly a priori (i.e. outside experience) 'anything may be the cause of · anything' (249), the world appears in experience as orderly and not capricious, it exhibits regularity as one set of causes is consistently and persistently followed by one set of effects. Accordingly it is to experience that this order and regularity must be traced. In summary: All those objects, of which we call the one cause and the other effect consider'd in themselves are as distinct and separate from each other as any two things in nature, nor can we ever, by the most accurate survey of them, infer the existence of one from that of the other. 'Tis only from experience and observation of their constant union that we are able to form this inference; and even after all, the inference is nothing but the effects of custom on the imagination. (405 cf. IOJ) Hume's most famous example is the impact of a moving billiard ball upon a stationary one (Abs: 186-7). Upon impact the latter ball moves and this seems an obvious case of causation. But since only a sequence of movements of balls is perceived why is it 'obvious' that this is indeed a causal sequence? Hume analyses the process and identifies three elements- contiguity (the first ball hits the second), priority (the second was static until hit by the first and then it moved) and constant

S8

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

conjunction. There is nothing else. There is no other source of knowledge about causation available to us; in particular we can know nothing of any supposed causal power or force (193 cf. EHU: 63). Hume's denial of the knowable existence of some such power was where his contemporaries took philosophical issue with his analysis (see Reid IP: Essay 6, Ch. 6; Kames PMNR: Pt. 2, Ch. s). Of the three elements Hume identifies the third is crucial. It is only because every time we have perceived a collision of balls the same sequence occurred that we can properly say the movement of the second ball has been caused by the impact of the first. The first two elements alone are insufficient - I might open my desk drawer and the filament in my desk light burns out. As a discrete, one-off sequence this is akin to the billiard balls; it is, however, not causal because each time I open my drawer my light does not fail, there is no constancy in the conjunction. What this means for Hume is that we attribute causal relations because we habitually associate phenomena. We are 'determined by custom' (Abs: 189) to expect or believe that the second ball's movement was caused by the impact upon it of the first ball. We expect, that is to say, that 'like objects placed in like circumstances will always produce like effects' (THN: IOS). On the basis of this we can predict that the second static ball will move when hit by the first ball in motion. The Baconian dimension to this is now evident. If we know, or can predict, that a set of effects will follow from a certain set of causes then we can act accordingly - that building will collapse unless the foundations are of a certain depth ('knowledge of causes is power'). The prediction is the product of our belief that 'nature will continue uniformly the same' (Abs: 188). Here ultimately lies the order we experience; an order that is 'nothing but the effects of custom on imagination'. So it is that Hume can claim that custom is the 'guide of human life' and 'the cement of the universe' (189, 198). We can now see that the role that habit plays in Hume's thought, which we discussed in Chapter 2 and which we will meet again, is underpinned by his basic epistemology. These principles of causation apply universally. They are not restricted to 'natural' phenomena like ballistics, they also apply to the workings of the mind and to the interactions of social life. This extension is indeed Hume's basic purpose in the Treatise. In the Introduction, using a striking military metaphor, he states that his aim is 'instead of taking now and then a castle or village on the frontier to march up directly to the capital or centre of these sciences, to human nature itself'. His conviction is that an explanation of the 'principles of human nature', or the formulation of 'the science of man', is the 'only solid foundation' for a 'compleat system of the sciences' (THN: xx). As Turnbull's exactly contemporary work demonstrates, Hume was not alone in this ambition and later Ferguson, for example, is equally forthright, 'The history of man's nature is the foundation of every science relating to him' (IMP: IS). For Hume, as the sub-title of the Treatise announces, victory will come from the 'experimental method of reasoning'. This method will be employed upon 'moral subjects' in the way it has been upon 'natural', that is, by considering only experience and 'explaining all the effects from the simplest and fewest causes'

SCIENCE, EXPLANATION AND HISTORY

59

(THN: xx-xxi). Though Newton is not here mentioned he is undeniably the inspiration.R The absence of an explicit reference is due to Hume's concern to distance himself from the directly Providentialist use made of Newton by Turnbull and many others. 9 Although Newton's impact is marked, he was not the only inspiration; Boyle, for example, is another likely candidate (cf. Barfoot 1990). Perhaps the most important consequence of Hume's commitment to a 'science of man' is the conviction that causal analysis must apply to 'moral subjects'. This application is, indeed, the hallmark of 'science'; it takes the study of mankind and society beyond the range of the vulgar. Hume makes a number of bold claims in this respect. For example, it is equally certain that 'two flat pieces of marble will unite together' as it is that 'two young savages of different sexes will copulate' (THN: 402). The essence of Hume's position can be best captured in one of his examples (one he uses on two separate occasions, which strongly suggests that he himself thought it telling). The example is a case where 'natural and moral evidence cement together' such that they are 'of the same nature and deriv'd from the same principles' (THN: 406, EHU: go). He presents the predicament of a prisoner in jail. The individual has 'neither money nor interest' and thus escape is impossible due as equally to the 'obstinacy of the gaoler' as it is to the 'walls and bars with which he is surrounded'. Experience has taught that human physical strength cannot destroy stone walls (natural evidence) and that deprived of the means to bribe jailers the latters' interests are bound to their custodial role (moral evidence). In both cases a series of constant conjunctions prevails. 111 It is the presence of this constancy that enables Hume to believe that 'moral subjects' are amenable to causal explanation and it is this explanation that the 'science of man' is primed to provide. Among the significant consequences of this position is a commitment to 'determinism'. What this commitment involves will be spelt out in Chapter 4, but we can say here that it is this commitment that explains why 'chance' is truly a matter of 'secret causes'. Just as there is no chance randomness or uncaused event in the natural world (EHU: 95), neither is there in the interpersonal social world or intra personal world of motives and character. This does not mean there is no variation. The theme of Chapter 4 will be how the Scots generally, Hume included, explain diversity. The crux is that causal regularity underpins this diversity and serves to explain it. Hence, although Hume allows that there are 'characters peculiar to different nations and particular persons' yet the knowledge of these characters stems from the necessary uniformity of the actions that flow from them ( THN: 403). The differences in national character and their explanation are 'experiments in the science of man'. Hume affirms that these must be gleaned from a 'cautious observation of human life'. Provided these experiments are 'judiciously collected and compared', then this science will possess the Baconian hallmarks of certainty and utility (THN: xxiii). iv) Smith and the History of Science Among Smith's unpublished manuscripts were a series of essays on the history of science. Of these the longest deals with the history of astronomy and this is

60

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

of interest not only intrinsically (see Skinner (1974b), Longuet-Higgins (1992), Raphael (1985: 107ff.)) but also, more especially, because it serves to link together a number of the themes that we have already covered. This extrinsic interest can be gauged from its full title (also shared by the other essays on Ancient Physics and Ancient Logics) - The Principles which lead and direct Philosophic Enquiries; illustrated kY the History of Astronomy. Smith is here using 'philosophy' to mean (as he says in the essay) 'the science of the connecting principles of nature' (EPS: 45 cf. 119 [Logics]). His aim is to explai~ 'philosophical systems' as attempts 'to order chaos' by allaying the 'tumult of the imagination' (45-6 cf. 105, 107 [Physics]). The principles that underlie his explanation are akin to Hume's account of association. If objects are observed to have 'constantly presented themselves to the senses' in a particular order then they become associated so that it is 'the habit of the imagination' to pass from one to the other (4o-1). Against this backcloth of imagined coherence anything that disrupts, or produces a 'gap', in the customary connections will produce initially 'surprise' and then 'wonder' at how the disruption occurred (40). Philosophy/science is the attempt to discover a 'connecting chain of intermediate events' such that the imagination can reassume its habits of association and in this way remove the wonder (42). As we noted above (p. 56) this language had been used by Kames (HLT: iv) and it was reproduced by Millar, who declared that 'in proportion as men are ignorant and destitute of civilization they are more liable to be impressed with admiration, wonder and surprise' (HV: IV, 320). The history of astronomical systems is then outlined by Smith to illustrate this gap-filling, wonder-removing quality. The systems culminate in Newton's. Not unexpectedly Smith is fulsome. Newton's system not only excels all others in internal coherence but also its principles have a greater degree of firmness and solidity than any other (104-5 cf. LRBL: 146). As a consequence his system 'has advanced to the acquisition of the most universal empire that was ever established in philosophy' (104). Smith goes on to remark that so powerful is the system that he has been led to using language that speaks of the connecting principles as 'the real chains' which operate in Nature (105). This remark has led some commentators to regard Smith as a 'conventionalist' rather than a 'realist' in his understanding of science (see especially Lindgren (1969) and also Christie (1987), Reisman (1976: 45) and Raphael (1979: 89-90)). This is far-fetched. Smith had made it clear that his project in the essay is limited to a particular psychological perspective (cf. Campbell 1971: 35). He is concerned with how philosophical systems are 'fitted to soothe the imagination' and, quite explicitly, not concerned with their 'absurdity or probability, their agreement or inconsistency with truth or reality' (46). Sophisticated a thinker as Smith was it is a mistake to saddle him with the subtleties of twentieth-century philosophy. If nothing else, as a man of the Enlightenment he would (if it were possible) regard an 'anti-realist' view of science as undercutting the Baconian project.

SCIENCE, EXPLANATION AND HISTORY

C: Conjectural History We noted above (Bi) that one of the striking facts about the Scots' social theory was its historical bent. Their history was of a distinctive kind. Dugald Stewart in his Life of Smith gave it the title 'theoretical or conjectural history' and the label has stuck. i) Sources and Method

The 'experimental' subject-matter of Hume's science of man is 'human life'. This, he says, must be 'cautiously observed'. For the Scots there were three chief sources from which observations could be gleaned - the contemporary world of 'civilised' Scotland and Europe, the contemporary 'savage' world of the Americas, Asia and Polynesia and the world described by the ancient authors. Whereas for the first source personal experience could be a touchstone, for the other two the observations have to be indirect or secondary. Hence the need for the caution advised by Hume. This the Scots duly exercised. They were acutely aware of the pitfalls of indiscriminate use of evidence. This awareness is partly a fruit of a 'historiographical revolution' in early eighteenth-century Scotland 11 and partly a product of their social 'scientific' aspirations. Of the Scots, Robertson is perhaps the most meticulous and self-conscious (cf. Black (1926: nSf.), Horn (1956)), although Gilbert Stuart extended his rivalry into this arena also. Robertson's sensitivity was established in his first major work, The History ofScotland. The contentiousness of this subject (cf. Kidd 1993) meant especial care had to be taken to vindicate his interpretation. In his Preface he itemised the scholarship that he had undertaken (HSc: 1-2). Similarly in his Preface to his View of Progress, he made a point of saying that he had carefully identified his sources and 'with a minute exactness' had cited his authorities ( VPE: 307). One reason for this parade of scholarly virtue was that he was critical of those who were cavalier in this regard. Among those criticised was Voltaire. After having paid due to Voltaire's universal genius, Robertson confesses that he was unable to use his work precisely because of his failure to cite his sources (429). 12 Robertson had other targets. He also criticised contemporary chroniclers. He thought that 'little information' is to be obtained from them since they were 'ignorant of the true end and unacquainted with the proper objects of history' (312). He is more precise in the History of Scotland. There he declares that prior to the reign of Kenneth II Scottish history is a time of pure fable, which ought to be 'totally neglected or abandoned to the industry and credulity of antiquaries' (HSc: 4). One mark of this credulity and ignorance was an indifference to anachronism. The role given to Legislators in these chronicles is a case in point. This role was the consequence of supposing the abilities of a later age to be present at an earlier date (see Stuart Diss: 226 quoted above p. 38). The sin of anachronism was more generally pervasive. For Kames, when studying 'original laws', 'nothing is more apt to lead into error' than 'prepossession derived from modern improvement'

62

SOCIAL THEORY OF THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

(HLT: 91). Stuart similarly remarked that the conjugal ceremonies of the ancient Germans were 'suited exactly to the condition of a rude society' and 'must not be judged by the ideas of a refined age' (VSE: 17 cf. so). In a striking phrase, Stuart elsewhere deemed anachronism· 'to violate the laws of history' (though as .befits his polemical temper he had Robertson, not chroniclers, in his sights at the time) (PLS: 2n). Anachronism is not the only mark of ignorance. These chroniclers were also indifferent to explanation (the 'proper object' of history). Instead they were propagandists. This same defect contaminated many of the ethnographical reports, the Scots' second source of observations. Robertson in his History of America commented upon the Spaniards, who, being the first Europeans in the Americas, had the opportunity of seeing the natives before the impact of European conquest and settlement. Alas they were mostly 'illiterate adventurers', ill-equipped for 'speculative inquiry'. The reports of later Spaniards were vitiated because, as participants in a long-running controversy, they either magnified the virtues or aggravated the defects of the natives. In each case the reports were unreliable (HAm: 8u). Millar echoes these conclusions. The information about the 'rude parts of the world', he notes, stems from 'travellers whose character and situation in life neither set them above the suspicion of being easily deceived nor of endeavouring to misrepresent the fact which they have related' (OR: r8o-r). The judicious historian:..cum-social theorist is not however at the mercy of propaganda, deception and misrepresentation. Scientific methodology is at hand to retrieve the situation. Two chief methods were employed. The first of these was implicit in the example of the die used by Hume in his Essays and Millar. The sheer recurrence of a particular finding has significance ('statistically' so, as we might say today). As Millar says:

From the number, however, and the variety of those relations they acquire in many cases a degree of authority upon which we may depend with security and to which the narration of any single person how respectable soever can have no pretension. (OR: 181) The second method is implicit in this statement and was openly mentioned by Hume when he remarked that the 'experiments' must be 'compared'. The Scots were convinced practitioners of (what is now called) the 'comparative method' (cf. Stocking 1975: 73). Once again Millar's testimony can be given in evidence. When 'illiterate men, ignorant of the writings of each other' have described 'people in similar circumstances', so that 'the reader has the opportunity of comparing their several descriptions', then 'from their agreement or disagreement' he is able 'to ascertain the credit that is due to them' (OR: 181). For Robertson, it is through 'comparing detached facts' supplied by, among others, missionaries and 'vulgar travellers' that it is possible to discover 'what they wanted the sagacity to observe' (HAm: 812-IJ). To Kames, the best method (there is 'none more rational') of studying law is by a 'careful and judicious comparison of the laws of different countries' (HLT: xii) while Monboddo confessed that he had

SCIENCE, EXPLANATION AND HISTORY

been at great pains to collect facts from travellers and 'to compare them with the facts related by ancient Authors' (AM: III, iii). Monboddo's choice for comparison was widely shared. Robertson, in a discussion of the sources from whi